Huckleberry Finn Part 16 to 20

CHAPTER XVI.WE slept most all day, and started out at night, a little ways behind amonstrous long raft that was as long going by as a procession. She hadfour long sweeps at each end, so we judged she carried as many as thirtymen, likely. She had five big wigwams aboard, wide apart, and an opencamp fire in the middle, and a tall flag-pole at each end. There was apower of style about her. It AMOUNTED to something being a raftsman onsuch a craft as that.We went drifting down into a big bend, and the night clouded up and gothot. The river was very wide, and was walled with solid timber on bothsides; you couldn't see a break in it hardly ever, or a light. We talkedabout Cairo, and wondered whether we would know it when we got to it. Isaid likely we wouldn't, because I had heard say there warn't but about adozen houses there, and if they didn't happen to have them lit up, howwas we going to know we was passing a town? Jim said if the two bigrivers joined together there, that would show. But I said maybe we mightthink we was passing the foot of an island and coming into the same oldriver again. That disturbed Jim--and me too. So the question was, whatto do? I said, paddle ashore the first time a light showed, and tellthem pap was behind, coming along with a trading-scow, and was a greenhand at the business, and wanted to know how far it was to Cairo. Jimthought it was a good idea, so we took a smoke on it and waited.There warn't nothing to do now but to look out sharp for the town, andnot pass it without seeing it. He said he'd be mighty sure to see it,because he'd be a free man the minute he seen it, but if he missed ithe'd be in a slave country again and no more show for freedom. Everylittle while he jumps up and says:"Dah she is?"But it warn't. It was Jack-o'-lanterns, or lightning bugs; so he setdown again, and went to watching, same as before. Jim said it made himall over trembly and feverish to be so close to freedom. Well, I cantell you it made me all over trembly and feverish, too, to hear him,because I begun to get it through my head that he WAS most free--and whowas to blame for it? Why, ME. I couldn't get that out of my conscience,no how nor no way. It got to troubling me so I couldn't rest; I couldn'tstay still in one place. It hadn't ever come home to me before, whatthis thing was that I was doing. But now it did; and it stayed with me,and scorched me more and more. I tried to make out to myself that Iwarn't to blame, because I didn't run Jim off from his rightful owner;but it warn't no use, conscience up and says, every time, "But you knowedhe was running for his freedom, and you could a paddled ashore and toldsomebody." That was so--I couldn't get around that noway. That waswhere it pinched. Conscience says to me, "What had poor Miss Watson doneto you that you could see her nigger go off right under your eyes andnever say one single word? What did that poor old woman do to you thatyou could treat her so mean? Why, she tried to learn you your book, shetried to learn you your manners, she tried to be good to you every wayshe knowed how. THAT'S what she done."I got to feeling so mean and so miserable I most wished I was dead. Ifidgeted up and down the raft, abusing myself to myself, and Jim wasfidgeting up and down past me. We neither of us could keep still. Everytime he danced around and says, "Dah's Cairo!" it went through me like ashot, and I thought if it WAS Cairo I reckoned I would die ofmiserableness.Jim talked out loud all the time while I was talking to myself. He wassaying how the first thing he would do when he got to a free State hewould go to saving up money and never spend a single cent, and when hegot enough he would buy his wife, which was owned on a farm close towhere Miss Watson lived; and then they would both work to buy the twochildren, and if their master wouldn't sell them, they'd get anAb'litionist to go and steal them.It most froze me to hear such talk. He wouldn't ever dared to talk suchtalk in his life before. Just see what a difference it made in him theminute he judged he was about free. It was according to the old saying,"Give a nigger an inch and he'll take an ell." Thinks I, this is whatcomes of my not thinking. Here was this nigger, which I had as good ashelped to run away, coming right out flat-footed and saying he wouldsteal his children--children that belonged to a man I didn't even know; aman that hadn't ever done me no harm.I was sorry to hear Jim say that, it was such a lowering of him. Myconscience got to stirring me up hotter than ever, until at last I saysto it, "Let up on me--it ain't too late yet--I'll paddle ashore at thefirst light and tell." I felt easy and happy and light as a featherright off. All my troubles was gone. I went to looking out sharp for alight, and sort of singing to myself. By and by one showed. Jim singsout:"We's safe, Huck, we's safe! Jump up and crack yo' heels! Dat's de goodole Cairo at las', I jis knows it!"I says:"I'll take the canoe and go and see, Jim. It mightn't be, you know."He jumped and got the canoe ready, and put his old coat in the bottom forme to set on, and give me the paddle; and as I shoved off, he says:"Pooty soon I'll be a-shout'n' for joy, en I'll say, it's all on accountso' Huck; I's a free man, en I couldn't ever ben free ef it hadn' ben forHuck; Huck done it. Jim won't ever forgit you, Huck; you's de bes' fren'Jim's ever had; en you's de ONLY fren' ole Jim's got now."I was paddling off, all in a sweat to tell on him; but when he says this,it seemed to kind of take the tuck all out of me. I went along slowthen, and I warn't right down certain whether I was glad I started orwhether I warn't. When I was fifty yards off, Jim says:"Dah you goes, de ole true Huck; de on'y white genlman dat ever kep' hispromise to ole Jim."Well, I just felt sick. But I says, I GOT to do it--I can't get OUT ofit. Right then along comes a skiff with two men in it with guns, andthey stopped and I stopped. One of them says:"What's that yonder?""A piece of a raft," I says."Do you belong on it?""Yes, sir.""Any men on it?""Only one, sir.""Well, there's five niggers run off to-night up yonder, above the head ofthe bend. Is your man white or black?"I didn't answer up prompt. I tried to, but the words wouldn't come. Itried for a second or two to brace up and out with it, but I warn't manenough--hadn't the spunk of a rabbit. I see I was weakening; so I justgive up trying, and up and says:"He's white.""I reckon we'll go and see for ourselves.""I wish you would," says I, "because it's pap that's there, and maybeyou'd help me tow the raft ashore where the light is. He's sick--and sois mam and Mary Ann.""Oh, the devil! we're in a hurry, boy. But I s'pose we've got to. Come,buckle to your paddle, and let's get along."I buckled to my paddle and they laid to their oars. When we had made astroke or two, I says:"Pap'll be mighty much obleeged to you, I can tell you. Everybody goesaway when I want them to help me tow the raft ashore, and I can't do itby myself.""Well, that's infernal mean. Odd, too. Say, boy, what's the matter withyour father?""It's the--a--the--well, it ain't anything much."They stopped pulling. It warn't but a mighty little ways to the raftnow. One says:"Boy, that's a lie. What IS the matter with your pap? Answer up squarenow, and it'll be the better for you.""I will, sir, I will, honest--but don't leave us, please. It's the--the--Gentlemen, if you'll only pull ahead, and let me heave you theheadline, you won't have to come a-near the raft--please do.""Set her back, John, set her back!" says one. They backed water. "Keepaway, boy--keep to looard. Confound it, I just expect the wind hasblowed it to us. Your pap's got the small-pox, and you know it preciouswell. Why didn't you come out and say so? Do you want to spread it allover?""Well," says I, a-blubbering, "I've told everybody before, and they justwent away and left us.""Poor devil, there's something in that. We are right down sorry for you,but we--well, hang it, we don't want the small-pox, you see. Look here,I'll tell you what to do. Don't you try to land by yourself, or you'llsmash everything to pieces. You float along down about twenty miles, andyou'll come to a town on the left-hand side of the river. It will belong after sun-up then, and when you ask for help you tell them yourfolks are all down with chills and fever. Don't be a fool again, and letpeople guess what is the matter. Now we're trying to do you a kindness;so you just put twenty miles between us, that's a good boy. It wouldn'tdo any good to land yonder where the light is--it's only a wood-yard.Say, I reckon your father's poor, and I'm bound to say he's in prettyhard luck. Here, I'll put a twenty-dollar gold piece on this board, andyou get it when it floats by. I feel mighty mean to leave you; but mykingdom! it won't do to fool with small-pox, don't you see?""Hold on, Parker," says the other man, "here's a twenty to put on theboard for me. Good-bye, boy; you do as Mr. Parker told you, and you'llbe all right.""That's so, my boy--good-bye, good-bye. If you see any runaway niggersyou get help and nab them, and you can make some money by it.""Good-bye, sir," says I; "I won't let no runaway niggers get by me if Ican help it."They went off and I got aboard the raft, feeling bad and low, because Iknowed very well I had done wrong, and I see it warn't no use for me totry to learn to do right; a body that don't get STARTED right when he'slittle ain't got no show--when the pinch comes there ain't nothing toback him up and keep him to his work, and so he gets beat. Then Ithought a minute, and says to myself, hold on; s'pose you'd a done rightand give Jim up, would you felt better than what you do now? No, says I,I'd feel bad--I'd feel just the same way I do now. Well, then, says I,what's the use you learning to do right when it's troublesome to do rightand ain't no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same? I wasstuck. I couldn't answer that. So I reckoned I wouldn't bother no moreabout it, but after this always do whichever come handiest at the time.I went into the wigwam; Jim warn't there. I looked all around; he warn'tanywhere. I says:"Jim!""Here I is, Huck. Is dey out o' sight yit? Don't talk loud."He was in the river under the stern oar, with just his nose out. I toldhim they were out of sight, so he come aboard. He says:"I was a-listenin' to all de talk, en I slips into de river en was gwyneto shove for sho' if dey come aboard. Den I was gwyne to swim to de raf'agin when dey was gone. But lawsy, how you did fool 'em, Huck! Dat WUZde smartes' dodge! I tell you, chile, I'spec it save' ole Jim--ole Jimain't going to forgit you for dat, honey."Then we talked about the money. It was a pretty good raise--twentydollars apiece. Jim said we could take deck passage on a steamboat now,and the money would last us as far as we wanted to go in the free States.He said twenty mile more warn't far for the raft to go, but he wished wewas already there.Towards daybreak we tied up, and Jim was mighty particular about hidingthe raft good. Then he worked all day fixing things in bundles, andgetting all ready to quit rafting.That night about ten we hove in sight of the lights of a town away downin a left-hand bend.I went off in the canoe to ask about it. Pretty soon I found a man outin the river with a skiff, setting a trot-line. I ranged up and says:"Mister, is that town Cairo?""Cairo? no. You must be a blame' fool.""What town is it, mister?""If you want to know, go and find out. If you stay here botherin' aroundme for about a half a minute longer you'll get something you won't want."I paddled to the raft. Jim was awful disappointed, but I said nevermind, Cairo would be the next place, I reckoned.We passed another town before daylight, and I was going out again; but itwas high ground, so I didn't go. No high ground about Cairo, Jim said.I had forgot it. We laid up for the day on a towhead tolerable close tothe left-hand bank. I begun to suspicion something. So did Jim. Isays:"Maybe we went by Cairo in the fog that night."He says:"Doan' le's talk about it, Huck. Po' niggers can't have no luck. Iawluz 'spected dat rattlesnake-skin warn't done wid its work.""I wish I'd never seen that snake-skin, Jim--I do wish I'd never laideyes on it.""It ain't yo' fault, Huck; you didn' know. Don't you blame yo'self 'boutit."When it was daylight, here was the clear Ohio water inshore, sure enough,and outside was the old regular Muddy! So it was all up with Cairo.We talked it all over. It wouldn't do to take to the shore; we couldn'ttake the raft up the stream, of course. There warn't no way but to waitfor dark, and start back in the canoe and take the chances. So we sleptall day amongst the cottonwood thicket, so as to be fresh for the work,and when we went back to the raft about dark the canoe was gone!We didn't say a word for a good while. There warn't anything to say. Weboth knowed well enough it was some more work of the rattlesnake-skin; sowhat was the use to talk about it? It would only look like we wasfinding fault, and that would be bound to fetch more bad luck--and keepon fetching it, too, till we knowed enough to keep still.By and by we talked about what we better do, and found there warn't noway but just to go along down with the raft till we got a chance to buy acanoe to go back in. We warn't going to borrow it when there warn'tanybody around, the way pap would do, for that might set people after us.So we shoved out after dark on the raft.Anybody that don't believe yet that it's foolishness to handle asnake-skin, after all that that snake-skin done for us, will believeit now if they read on and see what more it done for us.The place to buy canoes is off of rafts laying up at shore. But wedidn't see no rafts laying up; so we went along during three hours andmore. Well, the night got gray and ruther thick, which is the nextmeanest thing to fog. You can't tell the shape of the river, and youcan't see no distance. It got to be very late and still, and then alongcomes a steamboat up the river. We lit the lantern, and judged she wouldsee it. Up-stream boats didn't generly come close to us; they go out andfollow the bars and hunt for easy water under the reefs; but nights likethis they bull right up the channel against the whole river.We could hear her pounding along, but we didn't see her good till she wasclose. She aimed right for us. Often they do that and try to see howclose they can come without touching; sometimes the wheel bites off asweep, and then the pilot sticks his head out and laughs, and thinks he'smighty smart. Well, here she comes, and we said she was going to try andshave us; but she didn't seem to be sheering off a bit. She was a bigone, and she was coming in a hurry, too, looking like a black cloud withrows of glow-worms around it; but all of a sudden she bulged out, big andscary, with a long row of wide-open furnace doors shining like red-hotteeth, and her monstrous bows and guards hanging right over us. Therewas a yell at us, and a jingling of bells to stop the engines, a powwowof cussing, and whistling of steam--and as Jim went overboard on one sideand I on the other, she come smashing straight through the raft.I dived--and I aimed to find the bottom, too, for a thirty-foot wheel hadgot to go over me, and I wanted it to have plenty of room. I couldalways stay under water a minute; this time I reckon I stayed under aminute and a half. Then I bounced for the top in a hurry, for I wasnearly busting. I popped out to my armpits and blowed the water out ofmy nose, and puffed a bit. Of course there was a booming current; and ofcourse that boat started her engines again ten seconds after she stoppedthem, for they never cared much for raftsmen; so now she was churningalong up the river, out of sight in the thick weather, though I couldhear her.I sung out for Jim about a dozen times, but I didn't get any answer; so Igrabbed a plank that touched me while I was "treading water," and struckout for shore, shoving it ahead of me. But I made out to see that thedrift of the current was towards the left-hand shore, which meant that Iwas in a crossing; so I changed off and went that way.It was one of these long, slanting, two-mile crossings; so I was a goodlong time in getting over. I made a safe landing, and clumb up the bank.I couldn't see but a little ways, but I went poking along over roughground for a quarter of a mile or more, and then I run across a bigold-fashioned double log-house before I noticed it. I was going to rushby and get away, but a lot of dogs jumped out and went to howling andbarking at me, and I knowed better than to move another peg.CHAPTER XVII.IN about a minute somebody spoke out of a window without putting his headout, and says:"Be done, boys! Who's there?"I says:"It's me.""Who's me?""George Jackson, sir.""What do you want?""I don't want nothing, sir. I only want to go along by, but the dogswon't let me.""What are you prowling around here this time of night for--hey?""I warn't prowling around, sir, I fell overboard off of the steamboat.""Oh, you did, did you? Strike a light there, somebody. What did you sayyour name was?""George Jackson, sir. I'm only a boy.""Look here, if you're telling the truth you needn't be afraid--nobody'llhurt you. But don't try to budge; stand right where you are. Rouse outBob and Tom, some of you, and fetch the guns. George Jackson, is thereanybody with you?""No, sir, nobody."I heard the people stirring around in the house now, and see a light.The man sung out:"Snatch that light away, Betsy, you old fool--ain't you got any sense?Put it on the floor behind the front door. Bob, if you and Tom areready, take your places.""All ready.""Now, George Jackson, do you know the Shepherdsons?""No, sir; I never heard of them.""Well, that may be so, and it mayn't. Now, all ready. Step forward,George Jackson. And mind, don't you hurry--come mighty slow. If there'sanybody with you, let him keep back--if he shows himself he'll be shot.Come along now. Come slow; push the door open yourself--just enough tosqueeze in, d' you hear?"I didn't hurry; I couldn't if I'd a wanted to. I took one slow step at atime and there warn't a sound, only I thought I could hear my heart. Thedogs were as still as the humans, but they followed a little behind me.When I got to the three log doorsteps I heard them unlocking andunbarring and unbolting. I put my hand on the door and pushed it alittle and a little more till somebody said, "There, that's enough--putyour head in." I done it, but I judged they would take it off.The candle was on the floor, and there they all was, looking at me, andme at them, for about a quarter of a minute: Three big men with gunspointed at me, which made me wince, I tell you; the oldest, gray andabout sixty, the other two thirty or more--all of them fine and handsome--and the sweetest old gray-headed lady, and back of her two young womenwhich I couldn't see right well. The old gentleman says:"There; I reckon it's all right. Come in."As soon as I was in the old gentleman he locked the door and barred itand bolted it, and told the young men to come in with their guns, andthey all went in a big parlor that had a new rag carpet on the floor, andgot together in a corner that was out of the range of the front windows--there warn't none on the side. They held the candle, and took a goodlook at me, and all said, "Why, HE ain't a Shepherdson--no, there ain'tany Shepherdson about him." Then the old man said he hoped I wouldn'tmind being searched for arms, because he didn't mean no harm by it--itwas only to make sure. So he didn't pry into my pockets, but only feltoutside with his hands, and said it was all right. He told me to makemyself easy and at home, and tell all about myself; but the old ladysays:"Why, bless you, Saul, the poor thing's as wet as he can be; and don'tyou reckon it may be he's hungry?""True for you, Rachel--I forgot."So the old lady says:"Betsy" (this was a nigger woman), "you fly around and get him somethingto eat as quick as you can, poor thing; and one of you girls go and wakeup Buck and tell him--oh, here he is himself. Buck, take this littlestranger and get the wet clothes off from him and dress him up in some ofyours that's dry."Buck looked about as old as me--thirteen or fourteen or along there,though he was a little bigger than me. He hadn't on anything but ashirt, and he was very frowzy-headed. He came in gaping and digging onefist into his eyes, and he was dragging a gun along with the other one.He says:"Ain't they no Shepherdsons around?"They said, no, 'twas a false alarm."Well," he says, "if they'd a ben some, I reckon I'd a got one."They all laughed, and Bob says:"Why, Buck, they might have scalped us all, you've been so slow incoming.""Well, nobody come after me, and it ain't right I'm always kept down; Idon't get no show.""Never mind, Buck, my boy," says the old man, "you'll have show enough,all in good time, don't you fret about that. Go 'long with you now, anddo as your mother told you."When we got up-stairs to his room he got me a coarse shirt and aroundabout and pants of his, and I put them on. While I was at it heasked me what my name was, but before I could tell him he started to tellme about a bluejay and a young rabbit he had catched in the woods daybefore yesterday, and he asked me where Moses was when the candle wentout. I said I didn't know; I hadn't heard about it before, no way."Well, guess," he says."How'm I going to guess," says I, "when I never heard tell of it before?""But you can guess, can't you? It's just as easy.""WHICH candle?" I says."Why, any candle," he says."I don't know where he was," says I; "where was he?""Why, he was in the DARK! That's where he was!""Well, if you knowed where he was, what did you ask me for?""Why, blame it, it's a riddle, don't you see? Say, how long are yougoing to stay here? You got to stay always. We can just have boomingtimes--they don't have no school now. Do you own a dog? I've got adog--and he'll go in the river and bring out chips that you throw in. Doyou like to comb up Sundays, and all that kind of foolishness? You bet Idon't, but ma she makes me. Confound these ole britches! I reckon I'dbetter put 'em on, but I'd ruther not, it's so warm. Are you all ready?All right. Come along, old hoss."Cold corn-pone, cold corn-beef, butter and buttermilk--that is what theyhad for me down there, and there ain't nothing better that ever I've comeacross yet. Buck and his ma and all of them smoked cob pipes, except thenigger woman, which was gone, and the two young women. They all smokedand talked, and I eat and talked. The young women had quilts aroundthem, and their hair down their backs. They all asked me questions, andI told them how pap and me and all the family was living on a little farmdown at the bottom of Arkansaw, and my sister Mary Ann run off and gotmarried and never was heard of no more, and Bill went to hunt them and hewarn't heard of no more, and Tom and Mort died, and then there warn'tnobody but just me and pap left, and he was just trimmed down to nothing,on account of his troubles; so when he died I took what there was left,because the farm didn't belong to us, and started up the river, deckpassage, and fell overboard; and that was how I come to be here. So theysaid I could have a home there as long as I wanted it. Then it was mostdaylight and everybody went to bed, and I went to bed with Buck, and whenI waked up in the morning, drat it all, I had forgot what my name was.So I laid there about an hour trying to think, and when Buck waked up Isays:"Can you spell, Buck?""Yes," he says."I bet you can't spell my name," says I."I bet you what you dare I can," says he."All right," says I, "go ahead.""G-e-o-r-g-e J-a-x-o-n--there now," he says."Well," says I, "you done it, but I didn't think you could. It ain't noslouch of a name to spell--right off without studying."I set it down, private, because somebody might want ME to spell it next,and so I wanted to be handy with it and rattle it off like I was used toit.It was a mighty nice family, and a mighty nice house, too. I hadn't seenno house out in the country before that was so nice and had so muchstyle. It didn't have an iron latch on the front door, nor a wooden onewith a buckskin string, but a brass knob to turn, the same as houses intown. There warn't no bed in the parlor, nor a sign of a bed; but heapsof parlors in towns has beds in them. There was a big fireplace that wasbricked on the bottom, and the bricks was kept clean and red by pouringwater on them and scrubbing them with another brick; sometimes they washthem over with red water-paint that they call Spanish-brown, same as theydo in town. They had big brass dog-irons that could hold up a saw-log.There was a clock on the middle of the mantelpiece, with a picture of atown painted on the bottom half of the glass front, and a round place inthe middle of it for the sun, and you could see the pendulum swingingbehind it. It was beautiful to hear that clock tick; and sometimes whenone of these peddlers had been along and scoured her up and got her ingood shape, she would start in and strike a hundred and fifty before shegot tuckered out. They wouldn't took any money for her.Well, there was a big outlandish parrot on each side of the clock, madeout of something like chalk, and painted up gaudy. By one of the parrotswas a cat made of crockery, and a crockery dog by the other; and when youpressed down on them they squeaked, but didn't open their mouths nor lookdifferent nor interested. They squeaked through underneath. There was acouple of big wild-turkey-wing fans spread out behind those things. Onthe table in the middle of the room was a kind of a lovely crockerybasket that had apples and oranges and peaches and grapes piled up in it,which was much redder and yellower and prettier than real ones is, butthey warn't real because you could see where pieces had got chipped offand showed the white chalk, or whatever it was, underneath.This table had a cover made out of beautiful oilcloth, with a red andblue spread-eagle painted on it, and a painted border all around. Itcome all the way from Philadelphia, they said. There was some books,too, piled up perfectly exact, on each corner of the table. One was abig family Bible full of pictures. One was Pilgrim's Progress, about aman that left his family, it didn't say why. I read considerable in itnow and then. The statements was interesting, but tough. Another wasFriendship's Offering, full of beautiful stuff and poetry; but I didn'tread the poetry. Another was Henry Clay's Speeches, and another was Dr.Gunn's Family Medicine, which told you all about what to do if a body wassick or dead. There was a hymn book, and a lot of other books. Andthere was nice split-bottom chairs, and perfectly sound, too--not baggeddown in the middle and busted, like an old basket.They had pictures hung on the walls--mainly Washingtons and Lafayettes,and battles, and Highland Marys, and one called "Signing theDeclaration." There was some that they called crayons, which one of thedaughters which was dead made her own self when she was only fifteenyears old. They was different from any pictures I ever see before--blacker, mostly, than is common. One was a woman in a slim black dress,belted small under the armpits, with bulges like a cabbage in the middleof the sleeves, and a large black scoop-shovel bonnet with a black veil,and white slim ankles crossed about with black tape, and very wee blackslippers, like a chisel, and she was leaning pensive on a tombstone onher right elbow, under a weeping willow, and her other hand hanging downher side holding a white handkerchief and a reticule, and underneath thepicture it said "Shall I Never See Thee More Alas." Another one was ayoung lady with her hair all combed up straight to the top of her head,and knotted there in front of a comb like a chair-back, and she wascrying into a handkerchief and had a dead bird laying on its back in herother hand with its heels up, and underneath the picture it said "I ShallNever Hear Thy Sweet Chirrup More Alas." There was one where a younglady was at a window looking up at the moon, and tears running down hercheeks; and she had an open letter in one hand with black sealing waxshowing on one edge of it, and she was mashing a locket with a chain toit against her mouth, and underneath the picture it said "And Art ThouGone Yes Thou Art Gone Alas." These was all nice pictures, I reckon, butI didn't somehow seem to take to them, because if ever I was down alittle they always give me the fan-tods. Everybody was sorry she died,because she had laid out a lot more of these pictures to do, and a bodycould see by what she had done what they had lost. But I reckoned thatwith her disposition she was having a better time in the graveyard. Shewas at work on what they said was her greatest picture when she tooksick, and every day and every night it was her prayer to be allowed tolive till she got it done, but she never got the chance. It was apicture of a young woman in a long white gown, standing on the rail of abridge all ready to jump off, with her hair all down her back, andlooking up to the moon, with the tears running down her face, and she hadtwo arms folded across her breast, and two arms stretched out in front,and two more reaching up towards the moon--and the idea was to see whichpair would look best, and then scratch out all the other arms; but, as Iwas saying, she died before she got her mind made up, and now they keptthis picture over the head of the bed in her room, and every time herbirthday come they hung flowers on it. Other times it was hid with alittle curtain. The young woman in the picture had a kind of a nicesweet face, but there was so many arms it made her look too spidery,seemed to me.This young girl kept a scrap-book when she was alive, and used to pasteobituaries and accidents and cases of patient suffering in it out of thePresbyterian Observer, and write poetry after them out of her own head.It was very good poetry. This is what she wrote about a boy by the nameof Stephen Dowling Bots that fell down a well and was drownded:ODE TO STEPHEN DOWLING BOTS, DEC'DAnd did young Stephen sicken, And did young Stephen die? And did the sadhearts thicken, And did the mourners cry?No; such was not the fate of Young Stephen Dowling Bots; Though sadhearts round him thickened, 'Twas not from sickness' shots.No whooping-cough did rack his frame, Nor measles drear with spots; Notthese impaired the sacred name Of Stephen Dowling Bots.Despised love struck not with woe That head of curly knots, Nor stomachtroubles laid him low, Young Stephen Dowling Bots.O no. Then list with tearful eye, Whilst I his fate do tell. His souldid from this cold world fly By falling down a well.They got him out and emptied him; Alas it was too late; His spirit wasgone for to sport aloft In the realms of the good and great.If Emmeline Grangerford could make poetry like that before she wasfourteen, there ain't no telling what she could a done by and by. Bucksaid she could rattle off poetry like nothing. She didn't ever have tostop to think. He said she would slap down a line, and if she couldn'tfind anything to rhyme with it would just scratch it out and slap downanother one, and go ahead. She warn't particular; she could write aboutanything you choose to give her to write about just so it was sadful.Every time a man died, or a woman died, or a child died, she would be onhand with her "tribute" before he was cold. She called them tributes.The neighbors said it was the doctor first, then Emmeline, then theundertaker--the undertaker never got in ahead of Emmeline but once, andthen she hung fire on a rhyme for the dead person's name, which wasWhistler. She warn't ever the same after that; she never complained, butshe kinder pined away and did not live long. Poor thing, many's the timeI made myself go up to the little room that used to be hers and get outher poor old scrap-book and read in it when her pictures had beenaggravating me and I had soured on her a little. I liked all thatfamily, dead ones and all, and warn't going to let anything come betweenus. Poor Emmeline made poetry about all the dead people when she wasalive, and it didn't seem right that there warn't nobody to make someabout her now she was gone; so I tried to sweat out a verse or twomyself, but I couldn't seem to make it go somehow. They kept Emmeline'sroom trim and nice, and all the things fixed in it just the way she likedto have them when she was alive, and nobody ever slept there. The oldlady took care of the room herself, though there was plenty of niggers,and she sewed there a good deal and read her Bible there mostly.Well, as I was saying about the parlor, there was beautiful curtains onthe windows: white, with pictures painted on them of castles with vinesall down the walls, and cattle coming down to drink. There was a littleold piano, too, that had tin pans in it, I reckon, and nothing was everso lovely as to hear the young ladies sing "The Last Link is Broken" andplay "The Battle of Prague" on it. The walls of all the rooms wasplastered, and most had carpets on the floors, and the whole house waswhitewashed on the outside.It was a double house, and the big open place betwixt them was roofed andfloored, and sometimes the table was set there in the middle of the day,and it was a cool, comfortable place. Nothing couldn't be better. Andwarn't the cooking good, and just bushels of it too!CHAPTER XVIII.COL. GRANGERFORD was a gentleman, you see. He was a gentleman all over;and so was his family. He was well born, as the saying is, and that'sworth as much in a man as it is in a horse, so the Widow Douglas said,and nobody ever denied that she was of the first aristocracy in our town;and pap he always said it, too, though he warn't no more quality than amudcat himself. Col. Grangerford was very tall and very slim, and had adarkish-paly complexion, not a sign of red in it anywheres; he was cleanshaved every morning all over his thin face, and he had the thinnest kindof lips, and the thinnest kind of nostrils, and a high nose, and heavyeyebrows, and the blackest kind of eyes, sunk so deep back that theyseemed like they was looking out of caverns at you, as you may say. Hisforehead was high, and his hair was black and straight and hung to hisshoulders. His hands was long and thin, and every day of his life he puton a clean shirt and a full suit from head to foot made out of linen sowhite it hurt your eyes to look at it; and on Sundays he wore a bluetail-coat with brass buttons on it. He carried a mahogany cane with asilver head to it. There warn't no frivolishness about him, not a bit,and he warn't ever loud. He was as kind as he could be--you could feelthat, you know, and so you had confidence. Sometimes he smiled, and itwas good to see; but when he straightened himself up like a liberty-pole,and the lightning begun to flicker out from under his eyebrows, youwanted to climb a tree first, and find out what the matter wasafterwards. He didn't ever have to tell anybody to mind their manners--everybody was always good-mannered where he was. Everybody loved to havehim around, too; he was sunshine most always--I mean he made it seemlike good weather. When he turned into a cloudbank it was awful dark forhalf a minute, and that was enough; there wouldn't nothing go wrong againfor a week.When him and the old lady come down in the morning all the family got upout of their chairs and give them good-day, and didn't set down againtill they had set down. Then Tom and Bob went to the sideboard where thedecanter was, and mixed a glass of bitters and handed it to him, and heheld it in his hand and waited till Tom's and Bob's was mixed, and thenthey bowed and said, "Our duty to you, sir, and madam;" and THEY bowedthe least bit in the world and said thank you, and so they drank, allthree, and Bob and Tom poured a spoonful of water on the sugar and themite of whisky or apple brandy in the bottom of their tumblers, and giveit to me and Buck, and we drank to the old people too.Bob was the oldest and Tom next--tall, beautiful men with very broadshoulders and brown faces, and long black hair and black eyes. Theydressed in white linen from head to foot, like the old gentleman, andwore broad Panama hats.Then there was Miss Charlotte; she was twenty-five, and tall and proudand grand, but as good as she could be when she warn't stirred up; butwhen she was she had a look that would make you wilt in your tracks, likeher father. She was beautiful.So was her sister, Miss Sophia, but it was a different kind. She wasgentle and sweet like a dove, and she was only twenty.Each person had their own nigger to wait on them--Buck too. My niggerhad a monstrous easy time, because I warn't used to having anybody doanything for me, but Buck's was on the jump most of the time.This was all there was of the family now, but there used to be more--three sons; they got killed; and Emmeline that died.The old gentleman owned a lot of farms and over a hundred niggers.Sometimes a stack of people would come there, horseback, from ten orfifteen mile around, and stay five or six days, and have such junketingsround about and on the river, and dances and picnics in the woodsdaytimes, and balls at the house nights. These people was mostlykinfolks of the family. The men brought their guns with them. It was ahandsome lot of quality, I tell you.There was another clan of aristocracy around there--five or six families--mostly of the name of Shepherdson. They was as high-toned and wellborn and rich and grand as the tribe of Grangerfords. The Shepherdsonsand Grangerfords used the same steamboat landing, which was about twomile above our house; so sometimes when I went up there with a lot of ourfolks I used to see a lot of the Shepherdsons there on their fine horses.One day Buck and me was away out in the woods hunting, and heard a horsecoming. We was crossing the road. Buck says:"Quick! Jump for the woods!"We done it, and then peeped down the woods through the leaves. Prettysoon a splendid young man come galloping down the road, setting his horseeasy and looking like a soldier. He had his gun across his pommel. Ihad seen him before. It was young Harney Shepherdson. I heard Buck'sgun go off at my ear, and Harney's hat tumbled off from his head. Hegrabbed his gun and rode straight to the place where we was hid. But wedidn't wait. We started through the woods on a run. The woods warn'tthick, so I looked over my shoulder to dodge the bullet, and twice I seenHarney cover Buck with his gun; and then he rode away the way he come--toget his hat, I reckon, but I couldn't see. We never stopped running tillwe got home. The old gentleman's eyes blazed a minute--'twas pleasure,mainly, I judged--then his face sort of smoothed down, and he says,kind of gentle:"I don't like that shooting from behind a bush. Why didn't you step intothe road, my boy?""The Shepherdsons don't, father. They always take advantage."Miss Charlotte she held her head up like a queen while Buck was tellinghis tale, and her nostrils spread and her eyes snapped. The two youngmen looked dark, but never said nothing. Miss Sophia she turned pale,but the color come back when she found the man warn't hurt.Soon as I could get Buck down by the corn-cribs under the trees byourselves, I says:"Did you want to kill him, Buck?""Well, I bet I did.""What did he do to you?""Him? He never done nothing to me.""Well, then, what did you want to kill him for?""Why, nothing--only it's on account of the feud.""What's a feud?""Why, where was you raised? Don't you know what a feud is?""Never heard of it before--tell me about it.""Well," says Buck, "a feud is this way: A man has a quarrel with anotherman, and kills him; then that other man's brother kills HIM; then theother brothers, on both sides, goes for one another; then the COUSINSchip in--and by and by everybody's killed off, and there ain't no morefeud. But it's kind of slow, and takes a long time.""Has this one been going on long, Buck?""Well, I should RECKON! It started thirty year ago, or som'ers alongthere. There was trouble 'bout something, and then a lawsuit to settleit; and the suit went agin one of the men, and so he up and shot the manthat won the suit--which he would naturally do, of course. Anybodywould.""What was the trouble about, Buck?--land?""I reckon maybe--I don't know.""Well, who done the shooting? Was it a Grangerford or a Shepherdson?""Laws, how do I know? It was so long ago.""Don't anybody know?""Oh, yes, pa knows, I reckon, and some of the other old people; but theydon't know now what the row was about in the first place.""Has there been many killed, Buck?""Yes; right smart chance of funerals. But they don't always kill. Pa'sgot a few buckshot in him; but he don't mind it 'cuz he don't weigh much,anyway. Bob's been carved up some with a bowie, and Tom's been hurt onceor twice.""Has anybody been killed this year, Buck?""Yes; we got one and they got one. 'Bout three months ago my cousin Bud,fourteen year old, was riding through the woods on t'other side of theriver, and didn't have no weapon with him, which was blame' foolishness,and in a lonesome place he hears a horse a-coming behind him, and seesold Baldy Shepherdson a-linkin' after him with his gun in his hand andhis white hair a-flying in the wind; and 'stead of jumping off and takingto the brush, Bud 'lowed he could out-run him; so they had it, nip andtuck, for five mile or more, the old man a-gaining all the time; so atlast Bud seen it warn't any use, so he stopped and faced around so as tohave the bullet holes in front, you know, and the old man he rode up andshot him down. But he didn't git much chance to enjoy his luck, forinside of a week our folks laid HIM out.""I reckon that old man was a coward, Buck.""I reckon he WARN'T a coward. Not by a blame' sight. There ain't acoward amongst them Shepherdsons--not a one. And there ain't no cowardsamongst the Grangerfords either. Why, that old man kep' up his end in afight one day for half an hour against three Grangerfords, and come outwinner. They was all a-horseback; he lit off of his horse and got behinda little woodpile, and kep' his horse before him to stop the bullets; butthe Grangerfords stayed on their horses and capered around the old man,and peppered away at him, and he peppered away at them. Him and hishorse both went home pretty leaky and crippled, but the Grangerfords hadto be FETCHED home--and one of 'em was dead, and another died the nextday. No, sir; if a body's out hunting for cowards he don't want to foolaway any time amongst them Shepherdsons, becuz they don't breed any ofthat KIND."Next Sunday we all went to church, about three mile, everybodya-horseback. The men took their guns along, so did Buck, and kept thembetween their knees or stood them handy against the wall. TheShepherdsons done the same. It was pretty ornery preaching--all aboutbrotherly love, and such-like tiresomeness; but everybody said it was agood sermon, and they all talked it over going home, and had such apowerful lot to say about faith and good works and free grace andpreforeordestination, and I don't know what all, that it did seem to meto be one of the roughest Sundays I had run across yet.About an hour after dinner everybody was dozing around, some in theirchairs and some in their rooms, and it got to be pretty dull. Buck and adog was stretched out on the grass in the sun sound asleep. I went up toour room, and judged I would take a nap myself. I found that sweet MissSophia standing in her door, which was next to ours, and she took me inher room and shut the door very soft, and asked me if I liked her, and Isaid I did; and she asked me if I would do something for her and not tellanybody, and I said I would. Then she said she'd forgot her Testament,and left it in the seat at church between two other books, and would Islip out quiet and go there and fetch it to her, and not say nothing tonobody. I said I would. So I slid out and slipped off up the road, andthere warn't anybody at the church, except maybe a hog or two, for therewarn't any lock on the door, and hogs likes a puncheon floor insummer-time because it's cool. If you notice, most folks don't goto church only when they've got to; but a hog is different.Says I to myself, something's up; it ain't natural for a girl to be insuch a sweat about a Testament. So I give it a shake, and out drops alittle piece of paper with "HALF-PAST TWO" wrote on it with a pencil. Iransacked it, but couldn't find anything else. I couldn't make anythingout of that, so I put the paper in the book again, and when I got homeand upstairs there was Miss Sophia in her door waiting for me. Shepulled me in and shut the door; then she looked in the Testament till shefound the paper, and as soon as she read it she looked glad; and before abody could think she grabbed me and give me a squeeze, and said I was thebest boy in the world, and not to tell anybody. She was mighty red inthe face for a minute, and her eyes lighted up, and it made her powerfulpretty. I was a good deal astonished, but when I got my breath I askedher what the paper was about, and she asked me if I had read it, and Isaid no, and she asked me if I could read writing, and I told her "no,only coarse-hand," and then she said the paper warn't anything but abook-mark to keep her place, and I might go and play now.I went off down to the river, studying over this thing, and pretty soon Inoticed that my nigger was following along behind. When we was out ofsight of the house he looked back and around a second, and then comesa-running, and says:"Mars Jawge, if you'll come down into de swamp I'll show you a wholestack o' water-moccasins."Thinks I, that's mighty curious; he said that yesterday. He oughter knowa body don't love water-moccasins enough to go around hunting for them.What is he up to, anyway? So I says:"All right; trot ahead."I followed a half a mile; then he struck out over the swamp, and wadedankle deep as much as another half-mile. We come to a little flat pieceof land which was dry and very thick with trees and bushes and vines, andhe says:"You shove right in dah jist a few steps, Mars Jawge; dah's whah dey is.I's seed 'm befo'; I don't k'yer to see 'em no mo'."Then he slopped right along and went away, and pretty soon the trees hidhim. I poked into the place a-ways and come to a little open patch asbig as a bedroom all hung around with vines, and found a man laying thereasleep--and, by jings, it was my old Jim!I waked him up, and I reckoned it was going to be a grand surprise to himto see me again, but it warn't. He nearly cried he was so glad, but hewarn't surprised. Said he swum along behind me that night, and heard meyell every time, but dasn't answer, because he didn't want nobody to pickHIM up and take him into slavery again. Says he:"I got hurt a little, en couldn't swim fas', so I wuz a considable waysbehine you towards de las'; when you landed I reck'ned I could ketch upwid you on de lan' 'dout havin' to shout at you, but when I see dat houseI begin to go slow. I 'uz off too fur to hear what dey say to you--I wuz'fraid o' de dogs; but when it 'uz all quiet agin I knowed you's in dehouse, so I struck out for de woods to wait for day. Early in de mawnin'some er de niggers come along, gwyne to de fields, en dey tuk me enshowed me dis place, whah de dogs can't track me on accounts o' de water,en dey brings me truck to eat every night, en tells me how you's a-gitt'nalong.""Why didn't you tell my Jack to fetch me here sooner, Jim?""Well, 'twarn't no use to 'sturb you, Huck, tell we could do sumfn--butwe's all right now. I ben a-buyin' pots en pans en vittles, as I got achanst, en a-patchin' up de raf' nights when--""WHAT raft, Jim?""Our ole raf'.""You mean to say our old raft warn't smashed all to flinders?""No, she warn't. She was tore up a good deal--one en' of her was; butdey warn't no great harm done, on'y our traps was mos' all los'. Ef wehadn' dive' so deep en swum so fur under water, en de night hadn' ben sodark, en we warn't so sk'yerd, en ben sich punkin-heads, as de sayin' is,we'd a seed de raf'. But it's jis' as well we didn't, 'kase now she'sall fixed up agin mos' as good as new, en we's got a new lot o' stuff, inde place o' what 'uz los'.""Why, how did you get hold of the raft again, Jim--did you catch her?""How I gwyne to ketch her en I out in de woods? No; some er de niggersfoun' her ketched on a snag along heah in de ben', en dey hid her in acrick 'mongst de willows, en dey wuz so much jawin' 'bout which un 'umshe b'long to de mos' dat I come to heah 'bout it pooty soon, so I ups ensettles de trouble by tellin' 'um she don't b'long to none uv um, but toyou en me; en I ast 'm if dey gwyne to grab a young white genlman'spropaty, en git a hid'n for it? Den I gin 'm ten cents apiece, en dey'uz mighty well satisfied, en wisht some mo' raf's 'ud come along en make'm rich agin. Dey's mighty good to me, dese niggers is, en whatever Iwants 'm to do fur me I doan' have to ast 'm twice, honey. Dat Jack's agood nigger, en pooty smart.""Yes, he is. He ain't ever told me you was here; told me to come, andhe'd show me a lot of water-moccasins. If anything happens HE ain'tmixed up in it. He can say he never seen us together, and it 'll be thetruth."I don't want to talk much about the next day. I reckon I'll cut itpretty short. I waked up about dawn, and was a-going to turn over and goto sleep again when I noticed how still it was--didn't seem to be anybodystirring. That warn't usual. Next I noticed that Buck was up and gone.Well, I gets up, a-wondering, and goes down stairs--nobody around;everything as still as a mouse. Just the same outside. Thinks I, whatdoes it mean? Down by the wood-pile I comes across my Jack, and says:"What's it all about?"Says he:"Don't you know, Mars Jawge?""No," says I, "I don't.""Well, den, Miss Sophia's run off! 'deed she has. She run off in denight some time--nobody don't know jis' when; run off to get married todat young Harney Shepherdson, you know--leastways, so dey 'spec. Defambly foun' it out 'bout half an hour ago--maybe a little mo'--en' ITELL you dey warn't no time los'. Sich another hurryin' up guns enhosses YOU never see! De women folks has gone for to stir up derelations, en ole Mars Saul en de boys tuck dey guns en rode up de riverroad for to try to ketch dat young man en kill him 'fo' he kin git acrostde river wid Miss Sophia. I reck'n dey's gwyne to be mighty roughtimes.""Buck went off 'thout waking me up.""Well, I reck'n he DID! Dey warn't gwyne to mix you up in it. Mars Buckhe loaded up his gun en 'lowed he's gwyne to fetch home a Shepherdson orbust. Well, dey'll be plenty un 'm dah, I reck'n, en you bet you he'llfetch one ef he gits a chanst."I took up the river road as hard as I could put. By and by I begin tohear guns a good ways off. When I came in sight of the log store and thewoodpile where the steamboats lands I worked along under the trees andbrush till I got to a good place, and then I clumb up into the forks of acottonwood that was out of reach, and watched. There was a wood-rankfour foot high a little ways in front of the tree, and first I was goingto hide behind that; but maybe it was luckier I didn't.There was four or five men cavorting around on their horses in the openplace before the log store, cussing and yelling, and trying to get at acouple of young chaps that was behind the wood-rank alongside of thesteamboat landing; but they couldn't come it. Every time one of themshowed himself on the river side of the woodpile he got shot at. The twoboys was squatting back to back behind the pile, so they could watch bothways.By and by the men stopped cavorting around and yelling. They startedriding towards the store; then up gets one of the boys, draws a steadybead over the wood-rank, and drops one of them out of his saddle. Allthe men jumped off of their horses and grabbed the hurt one and startedto carry him to the store; and that minute the two boys started on therun. They got half way to the tree I was in before the men noticed.Then the men see them, and jumped on their horses and took out afterthem. They gained on the boys, but it didn't do no good, the boys hadtoo good a start; they got to the woodpile that was in front of my tree,and slipped in behind it, and so they had the bulge on the men again.One of the boys was Buck, and the other was a slim young chap aboutnineteen years old.The men ripped around awhile, and then rode away. As soon as they wasout of sight I sung out to Buck and told him. He didn't know what tomake of my voice coming out of the tree at first. He was awfulsurprised. He told me to watch out sharp and let him know when the mencome in sight again; said they was up to some devilment or other--wouldn't be gone long. I wished I was out of that tree, but I dasn'tcome down. Buck begun to cry and rip, and 'lowed that him and his cousinJoe (that was the other young chap) would make up for this day yet. Hesaid his father and his two brothers was killed, and two or three of theenemy. Said the Shepherdsons laid for them in ambush. Buck said hisfather and brothers ought to waited for their relations--the Shepherdsonswas too strong for them. I asked him what was become of young Harney andMiss Sophia. He said they'd got across the river and was safe. I wasglad of that; but the way Buck did take on because he didn't manage tokill Harney that day he shot at him--I hain't ever heard anything likeit.All of a sudden, bang! bang! bang! goes three or four guns--the men hadslipped around through the woods and come in from behind without theirhorses! The boys jumped for the river--both of them hurt--and as theyswum down the current the men run along the bank shooting at them andsinging out, "Kill them, kill them!" It made me so sick I most fell outof the tree. I ain't a-going to tell ALL that happened--it would make mesick again if I was to do that. I wished I hadn't ever come ashore thatnight to see such things. I ain't ever going to get shut of them--lotsof times I dream about them.I stayed in the tree till it begun to get dark, afraid to come down.Sometimes I heard guns away off in the woods; and twice I seen littlegangs of men gallop past the log store with guns; so I reckoned thetrouble was still a-going on. I was mighty downhearted; so I made up mymind I wouldn't ever go anear that house again, because I reckoned I wasto blame, somehow. I judged that that piece of paper meant that MissSophia was to meet Harney somewheres at half-past two and run off; and Ijudged I ought to told her father about that paper and the curious wayshe acted, and then maybe he would a locked her up, and this awful messwouldn't ever happened.When I got down out of the tree I crept along down the river bank apiece, and found the two bodies laying in the edge of the water, andtugged at them till I got them ashore; then I covered up their faces, andgot away as quick as I could. I cried a little when I was covering upBuck's face, for he was mighty good to me.It was just dark now. I never went near the house, but struck throughthe woods and made for the swamp. Jim warn't on his island, so I trampedoff in a hurry for the crick, and crowded through the willows, red-hot tojump aboard and get out of that awful country. The raft was gone! Mysouls, but I was scared! I couldn't get my breath for most a minute.Then I raised a yell. A voice not twenty-five foot from me says:"Good lan'! is dat you, honey? Doan' make no noise."It was Jim's voice--nothing ever sounded so good before. I run along thebank a piece and got aboard, and Jim he grabbed me and hugged me, he wasso glad to see me. He says:"Laws bless you, chile, I 'uz right down sho' you's dead agin. Jack'sbeen heah; he say he reck'n you's ben shot, kase you didn' come home nomo'; so I's jes' dis minute a startin' de raf' down towards de mouf er decrick, so's to be all ready for to shove out en leave soon as Jack comesagin en tells me for certain you IS dead. Lawsy, I's mighty glad to gityou back again, honey."I says:"All right--that's mighty good; they won't find me, and they'll thinkI've been killed, and floated down the river--there's something up therethat 'll help them think so--so don't you lose no time, Jim, but justshove off for the big water as fast as ever you can."I never felt easy till the raft was two mile below there and out in themiddle of the Mississippi. Then we hung up our signal lantern, andjudged that we was free and safe once more. I hadn't had a bite to eatsince yesterday, so Jim he got out some corn-dodgers and buttermilk, andpork and cabbage and greens--there ain't nothing in the world so goodwhen it's cooked right--and whilst I eat my supper we talked and had agood time. I was powerful glad to get away from the feuds, and so wasJim to get away from the swamp. We said there warn't no home like araft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but araft don't. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft.CHAPTER XIX.TWO or three days and nights went by; I reckon I might say they swum by,they slid along so quiet and smooth and lovely. Here is the way we putin the time. It was a monstrous big river down there--sometimes a mileand a half wide; we run nights, and laid up and hid daytimes; soon asnight was most gone we stopped navigating and tied up--nearly always inthe dead water under a towhead; and then cut young cottonwoods andwillows, and hid the raft with them. Then we set out the lines. Next weslid into the river and had a swim, so as to freshen up and cool off;then we set down on the sandy bottom where the water was about knee deep,and watched the daylight come. Not a sound anywheres--perfectly still--just like the whole world was asleep, only sometimes the bullfrogsa-cluttering, maybe. The first thing to see, looking away over the water,was a kind of dull line--that was the woods on t'other side; you couldn'tmake nothing else out; then a pale place in the sky; then more palenessspreading around; then the river softened up away off, and warn't blackany more, but gray; you could see little dark spots drifting along everso far away--trading scows, and such things; and long black streaks--rafts; sometimes you could hear a sweep screaking; or jumbled up voices,it was so still, and sounds come so far; and by and by you could see astreak on the water which you know by the look of the streak that there'sa snag there in a swift current which breaks on it and makes that streaklook that way; and you see the mist curl up off of the water, and theeast reddens up, and the river, and you make out a log-cabin in the edgeof the woods, away on the bank on t'other side of the river, being awoodyard, likely, and piled by them cheats so you can throw a dog throughit anywheres; then the nice breeze springs up, and comes fanning you fromover there, so cool and fresh and sweet to smell on account of the woodsand the flowers; but sometimes not that way, because they've left deadfish laying around, gars and such, and they do get pretty rank; and nextyou've got the full day, and everything smiling in the sun, and thesong-birds just going it!A little smoke couldn't be noticed now, so we would take some fish off ofthe lines and cook up a hot breakfast. And afterwards we would watch thelonesomeness of the river, and kind of lazy along, and by and by lazy offto sleep. Wake up by and by, and look to see what done it, and maybe seea steamboat coughing along up-stream, so far off towards the other sideyou couldn't tell nothing about her only whether she was a stern-wheel orside-wheel; then for about an hour there wouldn't be nothing to hear nornothing to see--just solid lonesomeness. Next you'd see a raft slidingby, away off yonder, and maybe a galoot on it chopping, because they'remost always doing it on a raft; you'd see the axe flash and come down--you don't hear nothing; you see that axe go up again, and by the timeit's above the man's head then you hear the K'CHUNK!--it had took allthat time to come over the water. So we would put in the day, lazyingaround, listening to the stillness. Once there was a thick fog, and therafts and things that went by was beating tin pans so the steamboatswouldn't run over them. A scow or a raft went by so close we could hearthem talking and cussing and laughing--heard them plain; but we couldn'tsee no sign of them; it made you feel crawly; it was like spiritscarrying on that way in the air. Jim said he believed it was spirits;but I says:"No; spirits wouldn't say, 'Dern the dern fog.'"Soon as it was night out we shoved; when we got her out to about themiddle we let her alone, and let her float wherever the current wantedher to; then we lit the pipes, and dangled our legs in the water, andtalked about all kinds of things--we was always naked, day and night,whenever the mosquitoes would let us--the new clothes Buck's folks madefor me was too good to be comfortable, and besides I didn't go much onclothes, nohow.Sometimes we'd have that whole river all to ourselves for the longesttime. Yonder was the banks and the islands, across the water; and maybe aspark--which was a candle in a cabin window; and sometimes on the wateryou could see a spark or two--on a raft or a scow, you know; and maybeyou could hear a fiddle or a song coming over from one of them crafts.It's lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckledwith stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, anddiscuss about whether they was made or only just happened. Jim heallowed they was made, but I allowed they happened; I judged it wouldhave took too long to MAKE so many. Jim said the moon could a LAID them;well, that looked kind of reasonable, so I didn't say nothing against it,because I've seen a frog lay most as many, so of course it could be done.We used to watch the stars that fell, too, and see them streak down. Jimallowed they'd got spoiled and was hove out of the nest.Once or twice of a night we would see a steamboat slipping along in thedark, and now and then she would belch a whole world of sparks up out ofher chimbleys, and they would rain down in the river and look awfulpretty; then she would turn a corner and her lights would wink out andher powwow shut off and leave the river still again; and by and by herwaves would get to us, a long time after she was gone, and joggle theraft a bit, and after that you wouldn't hear nothing for you couldn'ttell how long, except maybe frogs or something.After midnight the people on shore went to bed, and then for two or threehours the shores was black--no more sparks in the cabin windows. Thesesparks was our clock--the first one that showed again meant morning wascoming, so we hunted a place to hide and tie up right away.One morning about daybreak I found a canoe and crossed over a chute tothe main shore--it was only two hundred yards--and paddled about a mileup a crick amongst the cypress woods, to see if I couldn't get someberries. Just as I was passing a place where a kind of a cowpath crossedthe crick, here comes a couple of men tearing up the path as tight asthey could foot it. I thought I was a goner, for whenever anybody wasafter anybody I judged it was ME--or maybe Jim. I was about to dig outfrom there in a hurry, but they was pretty close to me then, and sung outand begged me to save their lives--said they hadn't been doing nothing,and was being chased for it--said there was men and dogs a-coming. Theywanted to jump right in, but I says:"Don't you do it. I don't hear the dogs and horses yet; you've got timeto crowd through the brush and get up the crick a little ways; then youtake to the water and wade down to me and get in--that'll throw the dogsoff the scent."They done it, and soon as they was aboard I lit out for our towhead, andin about five or ten minutes we heard the dogs and the men away off,shouting. We heard them come along towards the crick, but couldn't seethem; they seemed to stop and fool around a while; then, as we gotfurther and further away all the time, we couldn't hardly hear them atall; by the time we had left a mile of woods behind us and struck theriver, everything was quiet, and we paddled over to the towhead and hidin the cottonwoods and was safe.One of these fellows was about seventy or upwards, and had a bald headand very gray whiskers. He had an old battered-up slouch hat on, and agreasy blue woollen shirt, and ragged old blue jeans britches stuffedinto his boot-tops, and home-knit galluses--no, he only had one. He hadan old long-tailed blue jeans coat with slick brass buttons flung overhis arm, and both of them had big, fat, ratty-looking carpet-bags.The other fellow was about thirty, and dressed about as ornery. Afterbreakfast we all laid off and talked, and the first thing that come outwas that these chaps didn't know one another."What got you into trouble?" says the baldhead to t'other chap."Well, I'd been selling an article to take the tartar off the teeth--andit does take it off, too, and generly the enamel along with it--but Istayed about one night longer than I ought to, and was just in the act ofsliding out when I ran across you on the trail this side of town, and youtold me they were coming, and begged me to help you to get off. So Itold you I was expecting trouble myself, and would scatter out WITH you.That's the whole yarn--what's yourn?"Well, I'd ben a-running' a little temperance revival thar 'bout a week,and was the pet of the women folks, big and little, for I was makin' itmighty warm for the rummies, I TELL you, and takin' as much as five orsix dollars a night--ten cents a head, children and niggers free--andbusiness a-growin' all the time, when somehow or another a little reportgot around last night that I had a way of puttin' in my time with aprivate jug on the sly. A nigger rousted me out this mornin', and toldme the people was getherin' on the quiet with their dogs and horses, andthey'd be along pretty soon and give me 'bout half an hour's start, andthen run me down if they could; and if they got me they'd tar and featherme and ride me on a rail, sure. I didn't wait for no breakfast--I warn'thungry.""Old man," said the young one, "I reckon we might double-team ittogether; what do you think?""I ain't undisposed. What's your line--mainly?""Jour printer by trade; do a little in patent medicines; theater-actor--tragedy, you know; take a turn to mesmerism and phrenology when there's achance; teach singing-geography school for a change; sling a lecturesometimes--oh, I do lots of things--most anything that comes handy, so itain't work. What's your lay?""I've done considerble in the doctoring way in my time. Layin' on o'hands is my best holt--for cancer and paralysis, and sich things; and Ik'n tell a fortune pretty good when I've got somebody along to find outthe facts for me. Preachin's my line, too, and workin' camp-meetin's,and missionaryin' around."Nobody never said anything for a while; then the young man hove a sighand says:"Alas!""What 're you alassin' about?" says the bald-head."To think I should have lived to be leading such a life, and be degradeddown into such company." And he begun to wipe the corner of his eye witha rag."Dern your skin, ain't the company good enough for you?" says thebaldhead, pretty pert and uppish."Yes, it IS good enough for me; it's as good as I deserve; for whofetched me so low when I was so high? I did myself. I don't blame YOU,gentlemen--far from it; I don't blame anybody. I deserve it all. Letthe cold world do its worst; one thing I know--there's a grave somewherefor me. The world may go on just as it's always done, and take everythingfrom me--loved ones, property, everything; but it can't take that.Some day I'll lie down in it and forget it all, and my poor broken heartwill be at rest." He went on a-wiping."Drot your pore broken heart," says the baldhead; "what are you heavingyour pore broken heart at US f'r? WE hain't done nothing.""No, I know you haven't. I ain't blaming you, gentlemen. I broughtmyself down--yes, I did it myself. It's right I should suffer--perfectlyright--I don't make any moan.""Brought you down from whar? Whar was you brought down from?""Ah, you would not believe me; the world never believes--let it pass--'tis no matter. The secret of my birth--""The secret of your birth! Do you mean to say--""Gentlemen," says the young man, very solemn, "I will reveal it to you,for I feel I may have confidence in you. By rights I am a duke!"Jim's eyes bugged out when he heard that; and I reckon mine did, too.Then the baldhead says: "No! you can't mean it?""Yes. My great-grandfather, eldest son of the Duke of Bridgewater, fledto this country about the end of the last century, to breathe the pureair of freedom; married here, and died, leaving a son, his own fatherdying about the same time. The second son of the late duke seized thetitles and estates--the infant real duke was ignored. I am the linealdescendant of that infant--I am the rightful Duke of Bridgewater; andhere am I, forlorn, torn from my high estate, hunted of men, despised bythe cold world, ragged, worn, heart-broken, and degraded to thecompanionship of felons on a raft!"Jim pitied him ever so much, and so did I. We tried to comfort him, buthe said it warn't much use, he couldn't be much comforted; said if we wasa mind to acknowledge him, that would do him more good than most anythingelse; so we said we would, if he would tell us how. He said we ought tobow when we spoke to him, and say "Your Grace," or "My Lord," or "YourLordship"--and he wouldn't mind it if we called him plain"Bridgewater," which, he said, was a title anyway, and not a name; andone of us ought to wait on him at dinner, and do any little thing for himhe wanted done.Well, that was all easy, so we done it. All through dinner Jim stoodaround and waited on him, and says, "Will yo' Grace have some o' dis orsome o' dat?" and so on, and a body could see it was mighty pleasing tohim.But the old man got pretty silent by and by--didn't have much to say, anddidn't look pretty comfortable over all that petting that was going onaround that duke. He seemed to have something on his mind. So, along inthe afternoon, he says:"Looky here, Bilgewater," he says, "I'm nation sorry for you, but youain't the only person that's had troubles like that.""No?""No you ain't. You ain't the only person that's ben snaked downwrongfully out'n a high place.""Alas!""No, you ain't the only person that's had a secret of his birth." And,by jings, HE begins to cry."Hold! What do you mean?""Bilgewater, kin I trust you?" says the old man, still sort of sobbing."To the bitter death!" He took the old man by the hand and squeezed it,and says, "That secret of your being: speak!""Bilgewater, I am the late Dauphin!"You bet you, Jim and me stared this time. Then the duke says:"You are what?""Yes, my friend, it is too true--your eyes is lookin' at this very momenton the pore disappeared Dauphin, Looy the Seventeen, son of Looy theSixteen and Marry Antonette.""You! At your age! No! You mean you're the late Charlemagne; you mustbe six or seven hundred years old, at the very least.""Trouble has done it, Bilgewater, trouble has done it; trouble has brungthese gray hairs and this premature balditude. Yes, gentlemen, you seebefore you, in blue jeans and misery, the wanderin', exiled, trampled-on,and sufferin' rightful King of France."Well, he cried and took on so that me and Jim didn't know hardly what todo, we was so sorry--and so glad and proud we'd got him with us, too. Sowe set in, like we done before with the duke, and tried to comfort HIM.But he said it warn't no use, nothing but to be dead and done with it allcould do him any good; though he said it often made him feel easier andbetter for a while if people treated him according to his rights, and gotdown on one knee to speak to him, and always called him "Your Majesty,"and waited on him first at meals, and didn't set down in his presencetill he asked them. So Jim and me set to majestying him, and doing thisand that and t'other for him, and standing up till he told us we mightset down. This done him heaps of good, and so he got cheerful andcomfortable. But the duke kind of soured on him, and didn't look a bitsatisfied with the way things was going; still, the king acted realfriendly towards him, and said the duke's great-grandfather and all theother Dukes of Bilgewater was a good deal thought of by HIS father, andwas allowed to come to the palace considerable; but the duke stayed huffya good while, till by and by the king says:"Like as not we got to be together a blamed long time on this h-yer raft,Bilgewater, and so what's the use o' your bein' sour? It 'll only makethings oncomfortable. It ain't my fault I warn't born a duke, it ain'tyour fault you warn't born a king--so what's the use to worry? Make thebest o' things the way you find 'em, says I--that's my motto. This ain'tno bad thing that we've struck here--plenty grub and an easy life--come,give us your hand, duke, and le's all be friends."The duke done it, and Jim and me was pretty glad to see it. It took awayall the uncomfortableness and we felt mighty good over it, because itwould a been a miserable business to have any unfriendliness on the raft;for what you want, above all things, on a raft, is for everybody to besatisfied, and feel right and kind towards the others.It didn't take me long to make up my mind that these liars warn't nokings nor dukes at all, but just low-down humbugs and frauds. But Inever said nothing, never let on; kept it to myself; it's the best way;then you don't have no quarrels, and don't get into no trouble. If theywanted us to call them kings and dukes, I hadn't no objections, 'long asit would keep peace in the family; and it warn't no use to tell Jim, so Ididn't tell him. If I never learnt nothing else out of pap, I learntthat the best way to get along with his kind of people is to let themhave their own way.CHAPTER XX.THEY asked us considerable many questions; wanted to know what we coveredup the raft that way for, and laid by in the daytime instead of running--was Jim a runaway nigger? Says I:"Goodness sakes! would a runaway nigger run SOUTH?"No, they allowed he wouldn't. I had to account for things some way, so Isays:"My folks was living in Pike County, in Missouri, where I was born, andthey all died off but me and pa and my brother Ike. Pa, he 'lowed he'dbreak up and go down and live with Uncle Ben, who's got a littleone-horse place on the river, forty-four mile below Orleans. Pa waspretty poor, and had some debts; so when he'd squared up there warn'tnothing left but sixteen dollars and our nigger, Jim. That warn't enoughto take us fourteen hundred mile, deck passage nor no other way. Well,when the river rose pa had a streak of luck one day; he ketched thispiece of a raft; so we reckoned we'd go down to Orleans on it. Pa's luckdidn't hold out; a steamboat run over the forrard corner of the raft onenight, and we all went overboard and dove under the wheel; Jim and mecome up all right, but pa was drunk, and Ike was only four years old, sothey never come up no more. Well, for the next day or two we hadconsiderable trouble, because people was always coming out in skiffs andtrying to take Jim away from me, saying they believed he was a runawaynigger. We don't run daytimes no more now; nights they don't bother us."The duke says:"Leave me alone to cipher out a way so we can run in the daytime if wewant to. I'll think the thing over--I'll invent a plan that'll fix it.We'll let it alone for to-day, because of course we don't want to go bythat town yonder in daylight--it mightn't be healthy."Towards night it begun to darken up and look like rain; the heatlightning was squirting around low down in the sky, and the leaves wasbeginning to shiver--it was going to be pretty ugly, it was easy to seethat. So the duke and the king went to overhauling our wigwam, to seewhat the beds was like. My bed was a straw tick better than Jim's, whichwas a corn-shuck tick; there's always cobs around about in a shuck tick,and they poke into you and hurt; and when you roll over the dry shuckssound like you was rolling over in a pile of dead leaves; it makes such arustling that you wake up. Well, the duke allowed he would take my bed;but the king allowed he wouldn't. He says:"I should a reckoned the difference in rank would a sejested to you thata corn-shuck bed warn't just fitten for me to sleep on. Your Grace 'lltake the shuck bed yourself."Jim and me was in a sweat again for a minute, being afraid there wasgoing to be some more trouble amongst them; so we was pretty glad whenthe duke says:"'Tis my fate to be always ground into the mire under the iron heel ofoppression. Misfortune has broken my once haughty spirit; I yield, Isubmit; 'tis my fate. I am alone in the world--let me suffer; can bearit."We got away as soon as it was good and dark. The king told us to standwell out towards the middle of the river, and not show a light till wegot a long ways below the town. We come in sight of the little bunch oflights by and by--that was the town, you know--and slid by, about a halfa mile out, all right. When we was three-quarters of a mile below wehoisted up our signal lantern; and about ten o'clock it come on to rainand blow and thunder and lighten like everything; so the king told us toboth stay on watch till the weather got better; then him and the dukecrawled into the wigwam and turned in for the night. It was my watchbelow till twelve, but I wouldn't a turned in anyway if I'd had a bed,because a body don't see such a storm as that every day in the week, notby a long sight. My souls, how the wind did scream along! And everysecond or two there'd come a glare that lit up the white-caps for a halfa mile around, and you'd see the islands looking dusty through the rain,and the trees thrashing around in the wind; then comes a H-WHACK!--bum!bum! bumble-umble-um-bum-bum-bum-bum--and the thunder would go rumblingand grumbling away, and quit--and then RIP comes another flash andanother sockdolager. The waves most washed me off the raft sometimes,but I hadn't any clothes on, and didn't mind. We didn't have no troubleabout snags; the lightning was glaring and flittering around so constantthat we could see them plenty soon enough to throw her head this way orthat and miss them.I had the middle watch, you know, but I was pretty sleepy by that time,so Jim he said he would stand the first half of it for me; he was alwaysmighty good that way, Jim was. I crawled into the wigwam, but the kingand the duke had their legs sprawled around so there warn't no show forme; so I laid outside--I didn't mind the rain, because it was warm, andthe waves warn't running so high now. About two they come up again,though, and Jim was going to call me; but he changed his mind, because hereckoned they warn't high enough yet to do any harm; but he was mistakenabout that, for pretty soon all of a sudden along comes a regular ripperand washed me overboard. It most killed Jim a-laughing. He was theeasiest nigger to laugh that ever was, anyway.I took the watch, and Jim he laid down and snored away; and by and by thestorm let up for good and all; and the first cabin-light that showed Irousted him out, and we slid the raft into hiding quarters for the day.The king got out an old ratty deck of cards after breakfast, and him andthe duke played seven-up a while, five cents a game. Then they got tiredof it, and allowed they would "lay out a campaign," as they called it.The duke went down into his carpet-bag, and fetched up a lot of littleprinted bills and read them out loud. One bill said, "The celebrated Dr.Armand de Montalban, of Paris," would "lecture on the Science ofPhrenology" at such and such a place, on the blank day of blank, at tencents admission, and "furnish charts of character at twenty-five centsapiece." The duke said that was HIM. In another bill he was the"world-renowned Shakespearian tragedian, Garrick the Younger, of DruryLane, London." In other bills he had a lot of other names and done otherwonderful things, like finding water and gold with a "divining-rod,""dissipating witch spells," and so on. By and by he says:"But the histrionic muse is the darling. Have you ever trod the boards,Royalty?""No," says the king."You shall, then, before you're three days older, Fallen Grandeur," saysthe duke. "The first good town we come to we'll hire a hall and do thesword fight in Richard III. and the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet.How does that strike you?""I'm in, up to the hub, for anything that will pay, Bilgewater; but, yousee, I don't know nothing about play-actin', and hain't ever seen much ofit. I was too small when pap used to have 'em at the palace. Do youreckon you can learn me?""Easy!""All right. I'm jist a-freezn' for something fresh, anyway. Le'scommence right away."So the duke he told him all about who Romeo was and who Juliet was, andsaid he was used to being Romeo, so the king could be Juliet."But if Juliet's such a young gal, duke, my peeled head and my whitewhiskers is goin' to look oncommon odd on her, maybe.""No, don't you worry; these country jakes won't ever think of that.Besides, you know, you'll be in costume, and that makes all thedifference in the world; Juliet's in a balcony, enjoying the moonlightbefore she goes to bed, and she's got on her night-gown and her rufflednightcap. Here are the costumes for the parts."He got out two or three curtain-calico suits, which he said was meedyevilarmor for Richard III. and t'other chap, and a long white cottonnightshirt and a ruffled nightcap to match. The king was satisfied; sothe duke got out his book and read the parts over in the most splendidspread-eagle way, prancing around and acting at the same time, to showhow it had got to be done; then he give the book to the king and told himto get his part by heart.There was a little one-horse town about three mile down the bend, andafter dinner the duke said he had ciphered out his idea about how to runin daylight without it being dangersome for Jim; so he allowed he wouldgo down to the town and fix that thing. The king allowed he would go,too, and see if he couldn't strike something. We was out of coffee, soJim said I better go along with them in the canoe and get some.When we got there there warn't nobody stirring; streets empty, andperfectly dead and still, like Sunday. We found a sick nigger sunninghimself in a back yard, and he said everybody that warn't too young ortoo sick or too old was gone to camp-meeting, about two mile back in thewoods. The king got the directions, and allowed he'd go and work thatcamp-meeting for all it was worth, and I might go, too.The duke said what he was after was a printing-office. We found it; alittle bit of a concern, up over a carpenter shop--carpenters andprinters all gone to the meeting, and no doors locked. It was a dirty,littered-up place, and had ink marks, and handbills with pictures ofhorses and runaway niggers on them, all over the walls. The duke shedhis coat and said he was all right now. So me and the king lit out forthe camp-meeting.We got there in about a half an hour fairly dripping, for it was a mostawful hot day. There was as much as a thousand people there from twentymile around. The woods was full of teams and wagons, hitchedeverywheres, feeding out of the wagon-troughs and stomping to keep offthe flies. There was sheds made out of poles and roofed over withbranches, where they had lemonade and gingerbread to sell, and piles ofwatermelons and green corn and such-like truck.The preaching was going on under the same kinds of sheds, only they wasbigger and held crowds of people. The benches was made out of outsideslabs of logs, with holes bored in the round side to drive sticks intofor legs. They didn't have no backs. The preachers had high platforms tostand on at one end of the sheds. The women had on sun-bonnets; and somehad linsey-woolsey frocks, some gingham ones, and a few of the young oneshad on calico. Some of the young men was barefooted, and some of thechildren didn't have on any clothes but just a tow-linen shirt. Some ofthe old women was knitting, and some of the young folks was courting onthe sly.The first shed we come to the preacher was lining out a hymn. He linedout two lines, everybody sung it, and it was kind of grand to hear it,there was so many of them and they done it in such a rousing way; then helined out two more for them to sing--and so on. The people woke up moreand more, and sung louder and louder; and towards the end some begun togroan, and some begun to shout. Then the preacher begun to preach, andbegun in earnest, too; and went weaving first to one side of the platformand then the other, and then a-leaning down over the front of it, withhis arms and his body going all the time, and shouting his words out withall his might; and every now and then he would hold up his Bible andspread it open, and kind of pass it around this way and that, shouting,"It's the brazen serpent in the wilderness! Look upon it and live!" Andpeople would shout out, "Glory!--A-a-MEN!" And so he went on, and thepeople groaning and crying and saying amen:"Oh, come to the mourners' bench! come, black with sin! (AMEN!) come,sick and sore! (AMEN!) come, lame and halt and blind! (AMEN!) come, poreand needy, sunk in shame! (A-A-MEN!) come, all that's worn and soiled andsuffering!--come with a broken spirit! come with a contrite heart! comein your rags and sin and dirt! the waters that cleanse is free, the doorof heaven stands open--oh, enter in and be at rest!" (A-A-MEN! GLORY,GLORY HALLELUJAH!)And so on. You couldn't make out what the preacher said any more, onaccount of the shouting and crying. Folks got up everywheres in thecrowd, and worked their way just by main strength to the mourners' bench,with the tears running down their faces; and when all the mourners hadgot up there to the front benches in a crowd, they sung and shouted andflung themselves down on the straw, just crazy and wild.Well, the first I knowed the king got a-going, and you could hear himover everybody; and next he went a-charging up on to the platform, andthe preacher he begged him to speak to the people, and he done it. Hetold them he was a pirate--been a pirate for thirty years out in theIndian Ocean--and his crew was thinned out considerable last spring ina fight, and he was home now to take out some fresh men, and thanks togoodness he'd been robbed last night and put ashore off of a steamboatwithout a cent, and he was glad of it; it was the blessedest thing thatever happened to him, because he was a changed man now, and happy for thefirst time in his life; and, poor as he was, he was going to start rightoff and work his way back to the Indian Ocean, and put in the rest of hislife trying to turn the pirates into the true path; for he could do itbetter than anybody else, being acquainted with all pirate crews in thatocean; and though it would take him a long time to get there withoutmoney, he would get there anyway, and every time he convinced a pirate hewould say to him, "Don't you thank me, don't you give me no credit; itall belongs to them dear people in Pokeville camp-meeting, naturalbrothers and benefactors of the race, and that dear preacher there, thetruest friend a pirate ever had!"And then he busted into tears, and so did everybody. Then somebody singsout, "Take up a collection for him, take up a collection!" Well, a halfa dozen made a jump to do it, but somebody sings out, "Let HIM pass thehat around!" Then everybody said it, the preacher too.So the king went all through the crowd with his hat swabbing his eyes,and blessing the people and praising them and thanking them for being sogood to the poor pirates away off there; and every little while theprettiest kind of girls, with the tears running down their cheeks, wouldup and ask him would he let them kiss him for to remember him by; and healways done it; and some of them he hugged and kissed as many as five orsix times--and he was invited to stay a week; and everybody wanted him tolive in their houses, and said they'd think it was an honor; but he saidas this was the last day of the camp-meeting he couldn't do no good, andbesides he was in a sweat to get to the Indian Ocean right off and go towork on the pirates.When we got back to the raft and he come to count up he found he hadcollected eighty-seven dollars and seventy-five cents. And then he hadfetched away a three-gallon jug of whisky, too, that he found under awagon when he was starting home through the woods. The king said, takeit all around, it laid over any day he'd ever put in in the missionaryingline. He said it warn't no use talking, heathens don't amount to shucksalongside of pirates to work a camp-meeting with.The duke was thinking HE'D been doing pretty well till the king come toshow up, but after that he didn't think so so much. He had set up andprinted off two little jobs for farmers in that printing-office--horsebills--and took the money, four dollars. And he had got in tendollars' worth of advertisements for the paper, which he said he wouldput in for four dollars if they would pay in advance--so they done it.The price of the paper was two dollars a year, but he took in threesubscriptions for half a dollar apiece on condition of them paying him inadvance; they were going to pay in cordwood and onions as usual, but hesaid he had just bought the concern and knocked down the price as low ashe could afford it, and was going to run it for cash. He set up a littlepiece of poetry, which he made, himself, out of his own head--threeverses--kind of sweet and saddish--the name of it was, "Yes, crush, coldworld, this breaking heart"--and he left that all set up and ready toprint in the paper, and didn't charge nothing for it. Well, he took innine dollars and a half, and said he'd done a pretty square day's workfor it.Then he showed us another little job he'd printed and hadn't charged for,because it was for us. It had a picture of a runaway nigger with abundle on a stick over his shoulder, and "$200 reward" under it. Thereading was all about Jim, and just described him to a dot. It said herun away from St. Jacques' plantation, forty mile below New Orleans, lastwinter, and likely went north, and whoever would catch him and send himback he could have the reward and expenses."Now," says the duke, "after to-night we can run in the daytime if wewant to. Whenever we see anybody coming we can tie Jim hand and footwith a rope, and lay him in the wigwam and show this handbill and say wecaptured him up the river, and were too poor to travel on a steamboat, sowe got this little raft on credit from our friends and are going down toget the reward. Handcuffs and chains would look still better on Jim, butit wouldn't go well with the story of us being so poor. Too much likejewelry. Ropes are the correct thing--we must preserve the unities, aswe say on the boards."We all said the duke was pretty smart, and there couldn't be no troubleabout running daytimes. We judged we could make miles enough that nightto get out of the reach of the powwow we reckoned the duke's work in theprinting office was going to make in that little town; then we could boomright along if we wanted to.We laid low and kept still, and never shoved out till nearly ten o'clock;then we slid by, pretty wide away from the town, and didn't hoist ourlantern till we was clear out of sight of it.When Jim called me to take the watch at four in the morning, he says:"Huck, does you reck'n we gwyne to run acrost any mo' kings on dis trip?""No," I says, "I reckon not.""Well," says he, "dat's all right, den. I doan' mine one er two kings,but dat's enough. Dis one's powerful drunk, en de duke ain' muchbetter."I found Jim had been trying to get him to talk French, so he could hearwhat it was like; but he said he had been in this country so long, and had so much trouble, he'd forgot it.

Huckleberry Finn Chapters 11 to 15

CHAPTER XI.

"COME in," says the woman, and I did. She says: "Take a cheer."

I done it. She looked me all over with her little shiny eyes, and says:

"What might your name be?"

"Sarah Williams."

"Where 'bouts do you live? In this neighborhood?'

"No'm. In Hookerville, seven mile below. I've walked all the way and
I'm all tired out."

"Hungry, too, I reckon. I'll find you something."

"No'm, I ain't hungry. I was so hungry I had to stop two miles below
here at a farm; so I ain't hungry no more. It's what makes me so late.
My mother's down sick, and out of money and everything, and I come to
tell my uncle Abner Moore. He lives at the upper end of the town, she
says. I hain't ever been here before. Do you know him?"

"No; but I don't know everybody yet. I haven't lived here quite two
weeks. It's a considerable ways to the upper end of the town. You better
stay here all night. Take off your bonnet."

"No," I says; "I'll rest a while, I reckon, and go on. I ain't afeared
of the dark."

She said she wouldn't let me go by myself, but her husband would be in by
and by, maybe in a hour and a half, and she'd send him along with me.
Then she got to talking about her husband, and about her relations up the
river, and her relations down the river, and about how much better off
they used to was, and how they didn't know but they'd made a mistake
coming to our town, instead of letting well alone--and so on and so on,
till I was afeard I had made a mistake coming to her to find out what was
going on in the town; but by and by she dropped on to pap and the murder,
and then I was pretty willing to let her clatter right along. She told
about me and Tom Sawyer finding the six thousand dollars (only she got it
ten) and all about pap and what a hard lot he was, and what a hard lot I
was, and at last she got down to where I was murdered. I says:

"Who done it? We've heard considerable about these goings on down in
Hookerville, but we don't know who 'twas that killed Huck Finn."

"Well, I reckon there's a right smart chance of people HERE that'd like
to know who killed him. Some think old Finn done it himself."

"No--is that so?"

"Most everybody thought it at first. He'll never know how nigh he come
to getting lynched. But before night they changed around and judged it
was done by a runaway nigger named Jim."

"Why HE--"

I stopped. I reckoned I better keep still. She run on, and never
noticed I had put in at all:

"The nigger run off the very night Huck Finn was killed. So there's a
reward out for him--three hundred dollars. And there's a reward out for
old Finn, too--two hundred dollars. You see, he come to town the morning
after the murder, and told about it, and was out with 'em on the
ferryboat hunt, and right away after he up and left. Before night they
wanted to lynch him, but he was gone, you see. Well, next day they found
out the nigger was gone; they found out he hadn't ben seen sence ten
o'clock the night the murder was done. So then they put it on him, you
see; and while they was full of it, next day, back comes old Finn, and
went boo-hooing to Judge Thatcher to get money to hunt for the nigger all
over Illinois with. The judge gave him some, and that evening he got
drunk, and was around till after midnight with a couple of mighty
hard-looking strangers, and then went off with them. Well, he hain't
come back sence, and they ain't looking for him back till this thing
blows over a little, for people thinks now that he killed his boy and
fixed things so folks would think robbers done it, and then he'd get
Huck's money without having to bother a long time with a lawsuit. People
do say he warn't any too good to do it. Oh, he's sly, I reckon. If he
don't come back for a year he'll be all right. You can't prove anything
on him, you know; everything will be quieted down then, and he'll walk in
Huck's money as easy as nothing."

"Yes, I reckon so, 'm. I don't see nothing in the way of it. Has
everybody quit thinking the nigger done it?"

"Oh, no, not everybody. A good many thinks he done it. But they'll get
the nigger pretty soon now, and maybe they can scare it out of him."

"Why, are they after him yet?"

"Well, you're innocent, ain't you! Does three hundred dollars lay around
every day for people to pick up? Some folks think the nigger ain't far
from here. I'm one of them--but I hain't talked it around. A few days
ago I was talking with an old couple that lives next door in the log
shanty, and they happened to say hardly anybody ever goes to that island
over yonder that they call Jackson's Island. Don't anybody live there?
says I. No, nobody, says they. I didn't say any more, but I done some
thinking. I was pretty near certain I'd seen smoke over there, about the
head of the island, a day or two before that, so I says to myself, like
as not that nigger's hiding over there; anyway, says I, it's worth the
trouble to give the place a hunt. I hain't seen any smoke sence, so I
reckon maybe he's gone, if it was him; but husband's going over to see
--him and another man. He was gone up the river; but he got back to-day,
and I told him as soon as he got here two hours ago."

I had got so uneasy I couldn't set still. I had to do something with my
hands; so I took up a needle off of the table and went to threading it.
My hands shook, and I was making a bad job of it. When the woman stopped
talking I looked up, and she was looking at me pretty curious and smiling
a little. I put down the needle and thread, and let on to be interested
--and I was, too--and says:

"Three hundred dollars is a power of money. I wish my mother could get
it. Is your husband going over there to-night?"

"Oh, yes. He went up-town with the man I was telling you of, to get a
boat and see if they could borrow another gun. They'll go over after
midnight."

"Couldn't they see better if they was to wait till daytime?"

"Yes. And couldn't the nigger see better, too? After midnight he'll
likely be asleep, and they can slip around through the woods and hunt up
his camp fire all the better for the dark, if he's got one."

"I didn't think of that."

The woman kept looking at me pretty curious, and I didn't feel a bit
comfortable. Pretty soon she says"

"What did you say your name was, honey?"

"M--Mary Williams."

Somehow it didn't seem to me that I said it was Mary before, so I didn't
look up--seemed to me I said it was Sarah; so I felt sort of cornered,
and was afeared maybe I was looking it, too. I wished the woman would
say something more; the longer she set still the uneasier I was. But now
she says:

"Honey, I thought you said it was Sarah when you first come in?"

"Oh, yes'm, I did. Sarah Mary Williams. Sarah's my first name. Some
calls me Sarah, some calls me Mary."

"Oh, that's the way of it?"

"Yes'm."

I was feeling better then, but I wished I was out of there, anyway. I
couldn't look up yet.

Well, the woman fell to talking about how hard times was, and how poor
they had to live, and how the rats was as free as if they owned the
place, and so forth and so on, and then I got easy again. She was right
about the rats. You'd see one stick his nose out of a hole in the corner
every little while. She said she had to have things handy to throw at
them when she was alone, or they wouldn't give her no peace. She showed
me a bar of lead twisted up into a knot, and said she was a good shot
with it generly, but she'd wrenched her arm a day or two ago, and didn't
know whether she could throw true now. But she watched for a chance, and
directly banged away at a rat; but she missed him wide, and said "Ouch!"
it hurt her arm so. Then she told me to try for the next one. I wanted
to be getting away before the old man got back, but of course I didn't
let on. I got the thing, and the first rat that showed his nose I let
drive, and if he'd a stayed where he was he'd a been a tolerable sick
rat. She said that was first-rate, and she reckoned I would hive the
next one. She went and got the lump of lead and fetched it back, and
brought along a hank of yarn which she wanted me to help her with. I
held up my two hands and she put the hank over them, and went on talking
about her and her husband's matters. But she broke off to say:

"Keep your eye on the rats. You better have the lead in your lap,
handy."

So she dropped the lump into my lap just at that moment, and I clapped my
legs together on it and she went on talking. But only about a minute.
Then she took off the hank and looked me straight in the face, and very
pleasant, and says:

"Come, now, what's your real name?"

"Wh--what, mum?"

"What's your real name? Is it Bill, or Tom, or Bob?--or what is it?"

I reckon I shook like a leaf, and I didn't know hardly what to do. But I
says:

"Please to don't poke fun at a poor girl like me, mum. If I'm in the way
here, I'll--"

"No, you won't. Set down and stay where you are. I ain't going to hurt
you, and I ain't going to tell on you, nuther. You just tell me your
secret, and trust me. I'll keep it; and, what's more, I'll help you.
So'll my old man if you want him to. You see, you're a runaway
'prentice, that's all. It ain't anything. There ain't no harm in it.
You've been treated bad, and you made up your mind to cut. Bless you,
child, I wouldn't tell on you. Tell me all about it now, that's a good
boy."

So I said it wouldn't be no use to try to play it any longer, and I would
just make a clean breast and tell her everything, but she musn't go back
on her promise. Then I told her my father and mother was dead, and the
law had bound me out to a mean old farmer in the country thirty mile back
from the river, and he treated me so bad I couldn't stand it no longer;
he went away to be gone a couple of days, and so I took my chance and
stole some of his daughter's old clothes and cleared out, and I had been
three nights coming the thirty miles. I traveled nights, and hid
daytimes and slept, and the bag of bread and meat I carried from home
lasted me all the way, and I had a-plenty. I said I believed my uncle
Abner Moore would take care of me, and so that was why I struck out for
this town of Goshen.

"Goshen, child? This ain't Goshen. This is St. Petersburg. Goshen's
ten mile further up the river. Who told you this was Goshen?"

"Why, a man I met at daybreak this morning, just as I was going to turn
into the woods for my regular sleep. He told me when the roads forked I
must take the right hand, and five mile would fetch me to Goshen."

"He was drunk, I reckon. He told you just exactly wrong."

"Well, he did act like he was drunk, but it ain't no matter now. I got
to be moving along. I'll fetch Goshen before daylight."

"Hold on a minute. I'll put you up a snack to eat. You might want it."

So she put me up a snack, and says:

"Say, when a cow's laying down, which end of her gets up first? Answer
up prompt now--don't stop to study over it. Which end gets up first?"

"The hind end, mum."

"Well, then, a horse?"

"The for'rard end, mum."

"Which side of a tree does the moss grow on?"

"North side."

"If fifteen cows is browsing on a hillside, how many of them eats with
their heads pointed the same direction?"

"The whole fifteen, mum."

"Well, I reckon you HAVE lived in the country. I thought maybe you was
trying to hocus me again. What's your real name, now?"

"George Peters, mum."

"Well, try to remember it, George. Don't forget and tell me it's
Elexander before you go, and then get out by saying it's George Elexander
when I catch you. And don't go about women in that old calico. You do a
girl tolerable poor, but you might fool men, maybe. Bless you, child,
when you set out to thread a needle don't hold the thread still and fetch
the needle up to it; hold the needle still and poke the thread at it;
that's the way a woman most always does, but a man always does t'other
way. And when you throw at a rat or anything, hitch yourself up a tiptoe
and fetch your hand up over your head as awkward as you can, and miss
your rat about six or seven foot. Throw stiff-armed from the shoulder,
like there was a pivot there for it to turn on, like a girl; not from the
wrist and elbow, with your arm out to one side, like a boy. And, mind
you, when a girl tries to catch anything in her lap she throws her knees
apart; she don't clap them together, the way you did when you catched the
lump of lead. Why, I spotted you for a boy when you was threading the
needle; and I contrived the other things just to make certain. Now trot
along to your uncle, Sarah Mary Williams George Elexander Peters, and if
you get into trouble you send word to Mrs. Judith Loftus, which is me,
and I'll do what I can to get you out of it. Keep the river road all the
way, and next time you tramp take shoes and socks with you. The river
road's a rocky one, and your feet'll be in a condition when you get to
Goshen, I reckon."

I went up the bank about fifty yards, and then I doubled on my tracks and
slipped back to where my canoe was, a good piece below the house. I
jumped in, and was off in a hurry. I went up-stream far enough to make
the head of the island, and then started across. I took off the
sun-bonnet, for I didn't want no blinders on then. When I was about the
middle I heard the clock begin to strike, so I stops and listens; the
sound come faint over the water but clear--eleven. When I struck the
head of the island I never waited to blow, though I was most winded, but
I shoved right into the timber where my old camp used to be, and started
a good fire there on a high and dry spot.

Then I jumped in the canoe and dug out for our place, a mile and a half
below, as hard as I could go. I landed, and slopped through the timber
and up the ridge and into the cavern. There Jim laid, sound asleep on
the ground. I roused him out and says:

"Git up and hump yourself, Jim! There ain't a minute to lose. They're
after us!"

Jim never asked no questions, he never said a word; but the way he worked
for the next half an hour showed about how he was scared. By that time
everything we had in the world was on our raft, and she was ready to be
shoved out from the willow cove where she was hid. We put out the camp
fire at the cavern the first thing, and didn't show a candle outside
after that.

I took the canoe out from the shore a little piece, and took a look; but
if there was a boat around I couldn't see it, for stars and shadows ain't
good to see by. Then we got out the raft and slipped along down in the
shade, past the foot of the island dead still--never saying a word.




CHAPTER XII.

IT must a been close on to one o'clock when we got below the island at
last, and the raft did seem to go mighty slow. If a boat was to come
along we was going to take to the canoe and break for the Illinois shore;
and it was well a boat didn't come, for we hadn't ever thought to put the
gun in the canoe, or a fishing-line, or anything to eat. We was in
ruther too much of a sweat to think of so many things. It warn't good
judgment to put EVERYTHING on the raft.

If the men went to the island I just expect they found the camp fire I
built, and watched it all night for Jim to come. Anyways, they stayed
away from us, and if my building the fire never fooled them it warn't no
fault of mine. I played it as low down on them as I could.

When the first streak of day began to show we tied up to a towhead in a
big bend on the Illinois side, and hacked off cottonwood branches with
the hatchet, and covered up the raft with them so she looked like there
had been a cave-in in the bank there. A tow-head is a sandbar that has
cottonwoods on it as thick as harrow-teeth.

We had mountains on the Missouri shore and heavy timber on the Illinois
side, and the channel was down the Missouri shore at that place, so we
warn't afraid of anybody running across us. We laid there all day, and
watched the rafts and steamboats spin down the Missouri shore, and
up-bound steamboats fight the big river in the middle. I told Jim all
about the time I had jabbering with that woman; and Jim said she was a
smart one, and if she was to start after us herself she wouldn't set down
and watch a camp fire--no, sir, she'd fetch a dog. Well, then, I said,
why couldn't she tell her husband to fetch a dog? Jim said he bet she
did think of it by the time the men was ready to start, and he believed
they must a gone up-town to get a dog and so they lost all that time, or
else we wouldn't be here on a towhead sixteen or seventeen mile below the
village--no, indeedy, we would be in that same old town again. So I said
I didn't care what was the reason they didn't get us as long as they
didn't.

When it was beginning to come on dark we poked our heads out of the
cottonwood thicket, and looked up and down and across; nothing in sight;
so Jim took up some of the top planks of the raft and built a snug wigwam
to get under in blazing weather and rainy, and to keep the things dry.
Jim made a floor for the wigwam, and raised it a foot or more above the
level of the raft, so now the blankets and all the traps was out of reach
of steamboat waves. Right in the middle of the wigwam we made a layer of
dirt about five or six inches deep with a frame around it for to hold it
to its place; this was to build a fire on in sloppy weather or chilly;
the wigwam would keep it from being seen. We made an extra steering-oar,
too, because one of the others might get broke on a snag or something.
We fixed up a short forked stick to hang the old lantern on, because we
must always light the lantern whenever we see a steamboat coming
down-stream, to keep from getting run over; but we wouldn't have to light
it for up-stream boats unless we see we was in what they call a
"crossing"; for the river was pretty high yet, very low banks being still
a little under water; so up-bound boats didn't always run the channel,
but hunted easy water.

This second night we run between seven and eight hours, with a current
that was making over four mile an hour. We catched fish and talked, and
we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness. It was kind of
solemn, drifting down the big, still river, laying on our backs looking
up at the stars, and we didn't ever feel like talking loud, and it warn't
often that we laughed--only a little kind of a low chuckle. We had
mighty good weather as a general thing, and nothing ever happened to us
at all--that night, nor the next, nor the next.

Every night we passed towns, some of them away up on black hillsides,
nothing but just a shiny bed of lights; not a house could you see. The
fifth night we passed St. Louis, and it was like the whole world lit up.
In St. Petersburg they used to say there was twenty or thirty thousand
people in St. Louis, but I never believed it till I see that wonderful
spread of lights at two o'clock that still night. There warn't a sound
there; everybody was asleep.

Every night now I used to slip ashore towards ten o'clock at some little
village, and buy ten or fifteen cents' worth of meal or bacon or other
stuff to eat; and sometimes I lifted a chicken that warn't roosting
comfortable, and took him along. Pap always said, take a chicken when
you get a chance, because if you don't want him yourself you can easy
find somebody that does, and a good deed ain't ever forgot. I never see
pap when he didn't want the chicken himself, but that is what he used to
say, anyway.

Mornings before daylight I slipped into cornfields and borrowed a
watermelon, or a mushmelon, or a punkin, or some new corn, or things of
that kind. Pap always said it warn't no harm to borrow things if you was
meaning to pay them back some time; but the widow said it warn't anything
but a soft name for stealing, and no decent body would do it. Jim said
he reckoned the widow was partly right and pap was partly right; so the
best way would be for us to pick out two or three things from the list
and say we wouldn't borrow them any more--then he reckoned it wouldn't be
no harm to borrow the others. So we talked it over all one night,
drifting along down the river, trying to make up our minds whether to
drop the watermelons, or the cantelopes, or the mushmelons, or what. But
towards daylight we got it all settled satisfactory, and concluded to
drop crabapples and p'simmons. We warn't feeling just right before that,
but it was all comfortable now. I was glad the way it come out, too,
because crabapples ain't ever good, and the p'simmons wouldn't be ripe
for two or three months yet.

We shot a water-fowl now and then that got up too early in the morning or
didn't go to bed early enough in the evening. Take it all round, we
lived pretty high.

The fifth night below St. Louis we had a big storm after midnight, with a
power of thunder and lightning, and the rain poured down in a solid
sheet. We stayed in the wigwam and let the raft take care of itself.
When the lightning glared out we could see a big straight river ahead,
and high, rocky bluffs on both sides. By and by says I, "Hel-LO, Jim,
looky yonder!" It was a steamboat that had killed herself on a rock. We
was drifting straight down for her. The lightning showed her very
distinct. She was leaning over, with part of her upper deck above water,
and you could see every little chimbly-guy clean and clear, and a chair
by the big bell, with an old slouch hat hanging on the back of it, when
the flashes come.

Well, it being away in the night and stormy, and all so mysterious-like,
I felt just the way any other boy would a felt when I see that wreck
laying there so mournful and lonesome in the middle of the river. I
wanted to get aboard of her and slink around a little, and see what there
was there. So I says:

"Le's land on her, Jim."

But Jim was dead against it at first. He says:

"I doan' want to go fool'n 'long er no wrack. We's doin' blame' well, en
we better let blame' well alone, as de good book says. Like as not dey's
a watchman on dat wrack."

"Watchman your grandmother," I says; "there ain't nothing to watch but
the texas and the pilot-house; and do you reckon anybody's going to resk
his life for a texas and a pilot-house such a night as this, when it's
likely to break up and wash off down the river any minute?" Jim couldn't
say nothing to that, so he didn't try. "And besides," I says, "we might
borrow something worth having out of the captain's stateroom. Seegars, I
bet you--and cost five cents apiece, solid cash. Steamboat captains is
always rich, and get sixty dollars a month, and THEY don't care a cent
what a thing costs, you know, long as they want it. Stick a candle in
your pocket; I can't rest, Jim, till we give her a rummaging. Do you
reckon Tom Sawyer would ever go by this thing? Not for pie, he wouldn't.
He'd call it an adventure--that's what he'd call it; and he'd land on
that wreck if it was his last act. And wouldn't he throw style into it?
--wouldn't he spread himself, nor nothing? Why, you'd think it was
Christopher C'lumbus discovering Kingdom-Come. I wish Tom Sawyer WAS
here."

Jim he grumbled a little, but give in. He said we mustn't talk any more
than we could help, and then talk mighty low. The lightning showed us
the wreck again just in time, and we fetched the stabboard derrick, and
made fast there.

The deck was high out here. We went sneaking down the slope of it to
labboard, in the dark, towards the texas, feeling our way slow with our
feet, and spreading our hands out to fend off the guys, for it was so
dark we couldn't see no sign of them. Pretty soon we struck the forward
end of the skylight, and clumb on to it; and the next step fetched us in
front of the captain's door, which was open, and by Jimminy, away down
through the texas-hall we see a light! and all in the same second we seem
to hear low voices in yonder!

Jim whispered and said he was feeling powerful sick, and told me to come
along. I says, all right, and was going to start for the raft; but just
then I heard a voice wail out and say:

"Oh, please don't, boys; I swear I won't ever tell!"

Another voice said, pretty loud:

"It's a lie, Jim Turner. You've acted this way before. You always want
more'n your share of the truck, and you've always got it, too, because
you've swore 't if you didn't you'd tell. But this time you've said it
jest one time too many. You're the meanest, treacherousest hound in this
country."

By this time Jim was gone for the raft. I was just a-biling with
curiosity; and I says to myself, Tom Sawyer wouldn't back out now, and so
I won't either; I'm a-going to see what's going on here. So I dropped on
my hands and knees in the little passage, and crept aft in the dark till
there warn't but one stateroom betwixt me and the cross-hall of the
texas. Then in there I see a man stretched on the floor and tied hand
and foot, and two men standing over him, and one of them had a dim
lantern in his hand, and the other one had a pistol. This one kept
pointing the pistol at the man's head on the floor, and saying:

"I'd LIKE to! And I orter, too--a mean skunk!"

The man on the floor would shrivel up and say, "Oh, please don't, Bill; I
hain't ever goin' to tell."

And every time he said that the man with the lantern would laugh and say:

"'Deed you AIN'T! You never said no truer thing 'n that, you bet you."
And once he said: "Hear him beg! and yit if we hadn't got the best of
him and tied him he'd a killed us both. And what FOR? Jist for noth'n.
Jist because we stood on our RIGHTS--that's what for. But I lay you
ain't a-goin' to threaten nobody any more, Jim Turner. Put UP that
pistol, Bill."

Bill says:

"I don't want to, Jake Packard. I'm for killin' him--and didn't he kill
old Hatfield jist the same way--and don't he deserve it?"

"But I don't WANT him killed, and I've got my reasons for it."

"Bless yo' heart for them words, Jake Packard! I'll never forgit you
long's I live!" says the man on the floor, sort of blubbering.

Packard didn't take no notice of that, but hung up his lantern on a nail
and started towards where I was there in the dark, and motioned Bill to
come. I crawfished as fast as I could about two yards, but the boat
slanted so that I couldn't make very good time; so to keep from getting
run over and catched I crawled into a stateroom on the upper side. The
man came a-pawing along in the dark, and when Packard got to my
stateroom, he says:

"Here--come in here."

And in he come, and Bill after him. But before they got in I was up in
the upper berth, cornered, and sorry I come. Then they stood there, with
their hands on the ledge of the berth, and talked. I couldn't see them,
but I could tell where they was by the whisky they'd been having. I was
glad I didn't drink whisky; but it wouldn't made much difference anyway,
because most of the time they couldn't a treed me because I didn't
breathe. I was too scared. And, besides, a body COULDN'T breathe and
hear such talk. They talked low and earnest. Bill wanted to kill
Turner. He says:

"He's said he'll tell, and he will. If we was to give both our shares to
him NOW it wouldn't make no difference after the row and the way we've
served him. Shore's you're born, he'll turn State's evidence; now you
hear ME. I'm for putting him out of his troubles."

"So'm I," says Packard, very quiet.

"Blame it, I'd sorter begun to think you wasn't. Well, then, that's all
right. Le's go and do it."

"Hold on a minute; I hain't had my say yit. You listen to me.
Shooting's good, but there's quieter ways if the thing's GOT to be done.
But what I say is this: it ain't good sense to go court'n around after a
halter if you can git at what you're up to in some way that's jist as
good and at the same time don't bring you into no resks. Ain't that so?"

"You bet it is. But how you goin' to manage it this time?"

"Well, my idea is this: we'll rustle around and gather up whatever
pickins we've overlooked in the staterooms, and shove for shore and hide
the truck. Then we'll wait. Now I say it ain't a-goin' to be more'n two
hours befo' this wrack breaks up and washes off down the river. See?
He'll be drownded, and won't have nobody to blame for it but his own
self. I reckon that's a considerble sight better 'n killin' of him. I'm
unfavorable to killin' a man as long as you can git aroun' it; it ain't
good sense, it ain't good morals. Ain't I right?"

"Yes, I reck'n you are. But s'pose she DON'T break up and wash off?"

"Well, we can wait the two hours anyway and see, can't we?"

"All right, then; come along."

So they started, and I lit out, all in a cold sweat, and scrambled
forward. It was dark as pitch there; but I said, in a kind of a coarse
whisper, "Jim !" and he answered up, right at my elbow, with a sort of a
moan, and I says:

"Quick, Jim, it ain't no time for fooling around and moaning; there's a
gang of murderers in yonder, and if we don't hunt up their boat and set
her drifting down the river so these fellows can't get away from the
wreck there's one of 'em going to be in a bad fix. But if we find their
boat we can put ALL of 'em in a bad fix--for the sheriff 'll get 'em.
Quick--hurry! I'll hunt the labboard side, you hunt the stabboard.
You start at the raft, and--"

"Oh, my lordy, lordy! RAF'? Dey ain' no raf' no mo'; she done broke
loose en gone I--en here we is!"




CHAPTER XIII.

WELL, I catched my breath and most fainted. Shut up on a wreck with such
a gang as that! But it warn't no time to be sentimentering. We'd GOT to
find that boat now--had to have it for ourselves. So we went a-quaking
and shaking down the stabboard side, and slow work it was, too--seemed a
week before we got to the stern. No sign of a boat. Jim said he didn't
believe he could go any further--so scared he hadn't hardly any strength
left, he said. But I said, come on, if we get left on this wreck we are
in a fix, sure. So on we prowled again. We struck for the stern of the
texas, and found it, and then scrabbled along forwards on the skylight,
hanging on from shutter to shutter, for the edge of the skylight was in
the water. When we got pretty close to the cross-hall door there was the
skiff, sure enough! I could just barely see her. I felt ever so
thankful. In another second I would a been aboard of her, but just then
the door opened. One of the men stuck his head out only about a couple
of foot from me, and I thought I was gone; but he jerked it in again, and
says:

"Heave that blame lantern out o' sight, Bill!"

He flung a bag of something into the boat, and then got in himself and
set down. It was Packard. Then Bill HE come out and got in. Packard
says, in a low voice:

"All ready--shove off!"

I couldn't hardly hang on to the shutters, I was so weak. But Bill says:

"Hold on--'d you go through him?"

"No. Didn't you?"

"No. So he's got his share o' the cash yet."

"Well, then, come along; no use to take truck and leave money."

"Say, won't he suspicion what we're up to?"

"Maybe he won't. But we got to have it anyway. Come along."

So they got out and went in.

The door slammed to because it was on the careened side; and in a half
second I was in the boat, and Jim come tumbling after me. I out with my
knife and cut the rope, and away we went!

We didn't touch an oar, and we didn't speak nor whisper, nor hardly even
breathe. We went gliding swift along, dead silent, past the tip of the
paddle-box, and past the stern; then in a second or two more we was a
hundred yards below the wreck, and the darkness soaked her up, every last
sign of her, and we was safe, and knowed it.

When we was three or four hundred yards down-stream we see the lantern
show like a little spark at the texas door for a second, and we knowed by
that that the rascals had missed their boat, and was beginning to
understand that they was in just as much trouble now as Jim Turner was.

Then Jim manned the oars, and we took out after our raft. Now was the
first time that I begun to worry about the men--I reckon I hadn't had
time to before. I begun to think how dreadful it was, even for
murderers, to be in such a fix. I says to myself, there ain't no telling
but I might come to be a murderer myself yet, and then how would I like
it? So says I to Jim:

"The first light we see we'll land a hundred yards below it or above it,
in a place where it's a good hiding-place for you and the skiff, and then
I'll go and fix up some kind of a yarn, and get somebody to go for that
gang and get them out of their scrape, so they can be hung when their
time comes."

But that idea was a failure; for pretty soon it begun to storm again, and
this time worse than ever. The rain poured down, and never a light
showed; everybody in bed, I reckon. We boomed along down the river,
watching for lights and watching for our raft. After a long time the
rain let up, but the clouds stayed, and the lightning kept whimpering,
and by and by a flash showed us a black thing ahead, floating, and we
made for it.

It was the raft, and mighty glad was we to get aboard of it again. We
seen a light now away down to the right, on shore. So I said I would go
for it. The skiff was half full of plunder which that gang had stole
there on the wreck. We hustled it on to the raft in a pile, and I told
Jim to float along down, and show a light when he judged he had gone
about two mile, and keep it burning till I come; then I manned my oars
and shoved for the light. As I got down towards it three or four more
showed--up on a hillside. It was a village. I closed in above the shore
light, and laid on my oars and floated. As I went by I see it was a
lantern hanging on the jackstaff of a double-hull ferryboat. I skimmed
around for the watchman, a-wondering whereabouts he slept; and by and by
I found him roosting on the bitts forward, with his head down between his
knees. I gave his shoulder two or three little shoves, and begun to cry.

He stirred up in a kind of a startlish way; but when he see it was only
me he took a good gap and stretch, and then he says:

"Hello, what's up? Don't cry, bub. What's the trouble?"

I says:

"Pap, and mam, and sis, and--"

Then I broke down. He says:

"Oh, dang it now, DON'T take on so; we all has to have our troubles, and
this 'n 'll come out all right. What's the matter with 'em?"

"They're--they're--are you the watchman of the boat?"

"Yes," he says, kind of pretty-well-satisfied like. "I'm the captain and
the owner and the mate and the pilot and watchman and head deck-hand; and
sometimes I'm the freight and passengers. I ain't as rich as old Jim
Hornback, and I can't be so blame' generous and good to Tom, Dick, and
Harry as what he is, and slam around money the way he does; but I've told
him a many a time 't I wouldn't trade places with him; for, says I, a
sailor's life's the life for me, and I'm derned if I'D live two mile out
o' town, where there ain't nothing ever goin' on, not for all his
spondulicks and as much more on top of it. Says I--"

I broke in and says:

"They're in an awful peck of trouble, and--"

"WHO is?"

"Why, pap and mam and sis and Miss Hooker; and if you'd take your
ferryboat and go up there--"

"Up where? Where are they?"

"On the wreck."

"What wreck?"

"Why, there ain't but one."

"What, you don't mean the Walter Scott?"

"Yes."

"Good land! what are they doin' THERE, for gracious sakes?"

"Well, they didn't go there a-purpose."

"I bet they didn't! Why, great goodness, there ain't no chance for 'em
if they don't git off mighty quick! Why, how in the nation did they ever
git into such a scrape?"

"Easy enough. Miss Hooker was a-visiting up there to the town--"

"Yes, Booth's Landing--go on."

"She was a-visiting there at Booth's Landing, and just in the edge of the
evening she started over with her nigger woman in the horse-ferry to stay
all night at her friend's house, Miss What-you-may-call-her I disremember
her name--and they lost their steering-oar, and swung around and went
a-floating down, stern first, about two mile, and saddle-baggsed on the
wreck, and the ferryman and the nigger woman and the horses was all lost,
but Miss Hooker she made a grab and got aboard the wreck. Well, about an
hour after dark we come along down in our trading-scow, and it was so
dark we didn't notice the wreck till we was right on it; and so WE
saddle-baggsed; but all of us was saved but Bill Whipple--and oh, he WAS
the best cretur !--I most wish 't it had been me, I do."

"My George! It's the beatenest thing I ever struck. And THEN what did
you all do?"

"Well, we hollered and took on, but it's so wide there we couldn't make
nobody hear. So pap said somebody got to get ashore and get help
somehow. I was the only one that could swim, so I made a dash for it, and
Miss Hooker she said if I didn't strike help sooner, come here and hunt
up her uncle, and he'd fix the thing. I made the land about a mile
below, and been fooling along ever since, trying to get people to do
something, but they said, 'What, in such a night and such a current?
There ain't no sense in it; go for the steam ferry.' Now if you'll go
and--"

"By Jackson, I'd LIKE to, and, blame it, I don't know but I will; but who
in the dingnation's a-going' to PAY for it? Do you reckon your pap--"

"Why THAT'S all right. Miss Hooker she tole me, PARTICULAR, that her
uncle Hornback--"

"Great guns! is HE her uncle? Looky here, you break for that light over
yonder-way, and turn out west when you git there, and about a quarter of
a mile out you'll come to the tavern; tell 'em to dart you out to Jim
Hornback's, and he'll foot the bill. And don't you fool around any,
because he'll want to know the news. Tell him I'll have his niece all
safe before he can get to town. Hump yourself, now; I'm a-going up
around the corner here to roust out my engineer."

I struck for the light, but as soon as he turned the corner I went back
and got into my skiff and bailed her out, and then pulled up shore in the
easy water about six hundred yards, and tucked myself in among some
woodboats; for I couldn't rest easy till I could see the ferryboat start.
But take it all around, I was feeling ruther comfortable on accounts of
taking all this trouble for that gang, for not many would a done it. I
wished the widow knowed about it. I judged she would be proud of me for
helping these rapscallions, because rapscallions and dead beats is the
kind the widow and good people takes the most interest in.

Well, before long here comes the wreck, dim and dusky, sliding along
down! A kind of cold shiver went through me, and then I struck out for
her. She was very deep, and I see in a minute there warn't much chance
for anybody being alive in her. I pulled all around her and hollered a
little, but there wasn't any answer; all dead still. I felt a little bit
heavy-hearted about the gang, but not much, for I reckoned if they could
stand it I could.

Then here comes the ferryboat; so I shoved for the middle of the river on
a long down-stream slant; and when I judged I was out of eye-reach I laid
on my oars, and looked back and see her go and smell around the wreck for
Miss Hooker's remainders, because the captain would know her uncle
Hornback would want them; and then pretty soon the ferryboat give it up
and went for the shore, and I laid into my work and went a-booming down
the river.

It did seem a powerful long time before Jim's light showed up; and when
it did show it looked like it was a thousand mile off. By the time I got
there the sky was beginning to get a little gray in the east; so we
struck for an island, and hid the raft, and sunk the skiff, and turned in
and slept like dead people.




CHAPTER XIV.

BY and by, when we got up, we turned over the truck the gang had stole
off of the wreck, and found boots, and blankets, and clothes, and all
sorts of other things, and a lot of books, and a spyglass, and three
boxes of seegars. We hadn't ever been this rich before in neither of our
lives. The seegars was prime. We laid off all the afternoon in the
woods talking, and me reading the books, and having a general good time.
I told Jim all about what happened inside the wreck and at the ferryboat,
and I said these kinds of things was adventures; but he said he didn't
want no more adventures. He said that when I went in the texas and he
crawled back to get on the raft and found her gone he nearly died,
because he judged it was all up with HIM anyway it could be fixed; for if
he didn't get saved he would get drownded; and if he did get saved,
whoever saved him would send him back home so as to get the reward, and
then Miss Watson would sell him South, sure. Well, he was right; he was
most always right; he had an uncommon level head for a nigger.

I read considerable to Jim about kings and dukes and earls and such, and
how gaudy they dressed, and how much style they put on, and called each
other your majesty, and your grace, and your lordship, and so on, 'stead
of mister; and Jim's eyes bugged out, and he was interested. He says:

"I didn' know dey was so many un um. I hain't hearn 'bout none un um,
skasely, but ole King Sollermun, onless you counts dem kings dat's in a
pack er k'yards. How much do a king git?"

"Get?" I says; "why, they get a thousand dollars a month if they want
it; they can have just as much as they want; everything belongs to them."

"AIN' dat gay? En what dey got to do, Huck?"

"THEY don't do nothing! Why, how you talk! They just set around."

"No; is dat so?"

"Of course it is. They just set around--except, maybe, when there's a
war; then they go to the war. But other times they just lazy around; or
go hawking--just hawking and sp--Sh!--d' you hear a noise?"

We skipped out and looked; but it warn't nothing but the flutter of a
steamboat's wheel away down, coming around the point; so we come back.

"Yes," says I, "and other times, when things is dull, they fuss with the
parlyment; and if everybody don't go just so he whacks their heads off.
But mostly they hang round the harem."

"Roun' de which?"

"Harem."

"What's de harem?"

"The place where he keeps his wives. Don't you know about the harem?
Solomon had one; he had about a million wives."

"Why, yes, dat's so; I--I'd done forgot it. A harem's a bo'd'n-house, I
reck'n. Mos' likely dey has rackety times in de nussery. En I reck'n de
wives quarrels considable; en dat 'crease de racket. Yit dey say
Sollermun de wises' man dat ever live'. I doan' take no stock in dat.
Bekase why: would a wise man want to live in de mids' er sich a
blim-blammin' all de time? No--'deed he wouldn't. A wise man 'ud take
en buil' a biler-factry; en den he could shet DOWN de biler-factry when
he want to res'."

"Well, but he WAS the wisest man, anyway; because the widow she told me
so, her own self."

"I doan k'yer what de widder say, he WARN'T no wise man nuther. He had
some er de dad-fetchedes' ways I ever see. Does you know 'bout dat chile
dat he 'uz gwyne to chop in two?"

"Yes, the widow told me all about it."

"WELL, den! Warn' dat de beatenes' notion in de worl'? You jes' take en
look at it a minute. Dah's de stump, dah--dat's one er de women; heah's
you--dat's de yuther one; I's Sollermun; en dish yer dollar bill's de
chile. Bofe un you claims it. What does I do? Does I shin aroun'
mongs' de neighbors en fine out which un you de bill DO b'long to, en
han' it over to de right one, all safe en soun', de way dat anybody dat
had any gumption would? No; I take en whack de bill in TWO, en give half
un it to you, en de yuther half to de yuther woman. Dat's de way
Sollermun was gwyne to do wid de chile. Now I want to ast you: what's
de use er dat half a bill?--can't buy noth'n wid it. En what use is a
half a chile? I wouldn' give a dern for a million un um."

"But hang it, Jim, you've clean missed the point--blame it, you've missed
it a thousand mile."

"Who? Me? Go 'long. Doan' talk to me 'bout yo' pints. I reck'n I
knows sense when I sees it; en dey ain' no sense in sich doin's as dat.
De 'spute warn't 'bout a half a chile, de 'spute was 'bout a whole chile;
en de man dat think he kin settle a 'spute 'bout a whole chile wid a half
a chile doan' know enough to come in out'n de rain. Doan' talk to me
'bout Sollermun, Huck, I knows him by de back."

"But I tell you you don't get the point."

"Blame de point! I reck'n I knows what I knows. En mine you, de REAL
pint is down furder--it's down deeper. It lays in de way Sollermun was
raised. You take a man dat's got on'y one or two chillen; is dat man
gwyne to be waseful o' chillen? No, he ain't; he can't 'ford it. HE
know how to value 'em. But you take a man dat's got 'bout five million
chillen runnin' roun' de house, en it's diffunt. HE as soon chop a chile
in two as a cat. Dey's plenty mo'. A chile er two, mo' er less, warn't
no consekens to Sollermun, dad fatch him!"

I never see such a nigger. If he got a notion in his head once, there
warn't no getting it out again. He was the most down on Solomon of any
nigger I ever see. So I went to talking about other kings, and let
Solomon slide. I told about Louis Sixteenth that got his head cut off in
France long time ago; and about his little boy the dolphin, that would a
been a king, but they took and shut him up in jail, and some say he died
there.

"Po' little chap."

"But some says he got out and got away, and come to America."

"Dat's good! But he'll be pooty lonesome--dey ain' no kings here, is
dey, Huck?"

"No."

"Den he cain't git no situation. What he gwyne to do?"

"Well, I don't know. Some of them gets on the police, and some of them
learns people how to talk French."

"Why, Huck, doan' de French people talk de same way we does?"

"NO, Jim; you couldn't understand a word they said--not a single word."

"Well, now, I be ding-busted! How do dat come?"

"I don't know; but it's so. I got some of their jabber out of a book.
S'pose a man was to come to you and say Polly-voo-franzy--what would you
think?"

"I wouldn' think nuff'n; I'd take en bust him over de head--dat is, if he
warn't white. I wouldn't 'low no nigger to call me dat."

"Shucks, it ain't calling you anything. It's only saying, do you know
how to talk French?"

"Well, den, why couldn't he SAY it?"

"Why, he IS a-saying it. That's a Frenchman's WAY of saying it."

"Well, it's a blame ridicklous way, en I doan' want to hear no mo' 'bout
it. Dey ain' no sense in it."

"Looky here, Jim; does a cat talk like we do?"

"No, a cat don't."

"Well, does a cow?"

"No, a cow don't, nuther."

"Does a cat talk like a cow, or a cow talk like a cat?"

"No, dey don't."

"It's natural and right for 'em to talk different from each other, ain't
it?"

"Course."

"And ain't it natural and right for a cat and a cow to talk different
from US?"

"Why, mos' sholy it is."

"Well, then, why ain't it natural and right for a FRENCHMAN to talk
different from us? You answer me that."

"Is a cat a man, Huck?"

"No."

"Well, den, dey ain't no sense in a cat talkin' like a man. Is a cow a
man?--er is a cow a cat?"

"No, she ain't either of them."

"Well, den, she ain't got no business to talk like either one er the
yuther of 'em. Is a Frenchman a man?"

"Yes."

"WELL, den! Dad blame it, why doan' he TALK like a man? You answer me
DAT!"

I see it warn't no use wasting words--you can't learn a nigger to argue.
So I quit.




CHAPTER XV.

WE judged that three nights more would fetch us to Cairo, at the bottom
of Illinois, where the Ohio River comes in, and that was what we was
after. We would sell the raft and get on a steamboat and go way up the
Ohio amongst the free States, and then be out of trouble.

Well, the second night a fog begun to come on, and we made for a towhead
to tie to, for it wouldn't do to try to run in a fog; but when I paddled
ahead in the canoe, with the line to make fast, there warn't anything but
little saplings to tie to. I passed the line around one of them right on
the edge of the cut bank, but there was a stiff current, and the raft
come booming down so lively she tore it out by the roots and away she
went. I see the fog closing down, and it made me so sick and scared I
couldn't budge for most a half a minute it seemed to me--and then there
warn't no raft in sight; you couldn't see twenty yards. I jumped into
the canoe and run back to the stern, and grabbed the paddle and set her
back a stroke. But she didn't come. I was in such a hurry I hadn't
untied her. I got up and tried to untie her, but I was so excited my
hands shook so I couldn't hardly do anything with them.

As soon as I got started I took out after the raft, hot and heavy, right
down the towhead. That was all right as far as it went, but the towhead
warn't sixty yards long, and the minute I flew by the foot of it I shot
out into the solid white fog, and hadn't no more idea which way I was
going than a dead man.

Thinks I, it won't do to paddle; first I know I'll run into the bank or a
towhead or something; I got to set still and float, and yet it's mighty
fidgety business to have to hold your hands still at such a time. I
whooped and listened. Away down there somewheres I hears a small whoop,
and up comes my spirits. I went tearing after it, listening sharp to
hear it again. The next time it come I see I warn't heading for it, but
heading away to the right of it. And the next time I was heading away to
the left of it--and not gaining on it much either, for I was flying
around, this way and that and t'other, but it was going straight ahead
all the time.

I did wish the fool would think to beat a tin pan, and beat it all the
time, but he never did, and it was the still places between the whoops
that was making the trouble for me. Well, I fought along, and directly I
hears the whoop BEHIND me. I was tangled good now. That was somebody
else's whoop, or else I was turned around.

I throwed the paddle down. I heard the whoop again; it was behind me
yet, but in a different place; it kept coming, and kept changing its
place, and I kept answering, till by and by it was in front of me again,
and I knowed the current had swung the canoe's head down-stream, and I
was all right if that was Jim and not some other raftsman hollering. I
couldn't tell nothing about voices in a fog, for nothing don't look
natural nor sound natural in a fog.

The whooping went on, and in about a minute I come a-booming down on a
cut bank with smoky ghosts of big trees on it, and the current throwed me
off to the left and shot by, amongst a lot of snags that fairly roared,
the currrent was tearing by them so swift.

In another second or two it was solid white and still again. I set
perfectly still then, listening to my heart thump, and I reckon I didn't
draw a breath while it thumped a hundred.

I just give up then. I knowed what the matter was. That cut bank was an
island, and Jim had gone down t'other side of it. It warn't no towhead
that you could float by in ten minutes. It had the big timber of a
regular island; it might be five or six miles long and more than half a
mile wide.

I kept quiet, with my ears cocked, about fifteen minutes, I reckon. I
was floating along, of course, four or five miles an hour; but you don't
ever think of that. No, you FEEL like you are laying dead still on the
water; and if a little glimpse of a snag slips by you don't think to
yourself how fast YOU'RE going, but you catch your breath and think, my!
how that snag's tearing along. If you think it ain't dismal and lonesome
out in a fog that way by yourself in the night, you try it once--you'll
see.

Next, for about a half an hour, I whoops now and then; at last I hears
the answer a long ways off, and tries to follow it, but I couldn't do it,
and directly I judged I'd got into a nest of towheads, for I had little
dim glimpses of them on both sides of me--sometimes just a narrow channel
between, and some that I couldn't see I knowed was there because I'd hear
the wash of the current against the old dead brush and trash that hung
over the banks. Well, I warn't long loosing the whoops down amongst the
towheads; and I only tried to chase them a little while, anyway, because
it was worse than chasing a Jack-o'-lantern. You never knowed a sound
dodge around so, and swap places so quick and so much.

I had to claw away from the bank pretty lively four or five times, to
keep from knocking the islands out of the river; and so I judged the raft
must be butting into the bank every now and then, or else it would get
further ahead and clear out of hearing--it was floating a little faster
than what I was.

Well, I seemed to be in the open river again by and by, but I couldn't
hear no sign of a whoop nowheres. I reckoned Jim had fetched up on a
snag, maybe, and it was all up with him. I was good and tired, so I laid
down in the canoe and said I wouldn't bother no more. I didn't want to
go to sleep, of course; but I was so sleepy I couldn't help it; so I
thought I would take jest one little cat-nap.

But I reckon it was more than a cat-nap, for when I waked up the stars
was shining bright, the fog was all gone, and I was spinning down a big
bend stern first. First I didn't know where I was; I thought I was
dreaming; and when things began to come back to me they seemed to come up
dim out of last week.

It was a monstrous big river here, with the tallest and the thickest kind
of timber on both banks; just a solid wall, as well as I could see by the
stars. I looked away down-stream, and seen a black speck on the water.
I took after it; but when I got to it it warn't nothing but a couple of
sawlogs made fast together. Then I see another speck, and chased that;
then another, and this time I was right. It was the raft.

When I got to it Jim was setting there with his head down between his
knees, asleep, with his right arm hanging over the steering-oar. The
other oar was smashed off, and the raft was littered up with leaves and
branches and dirt. So she'd had a rough time.

I made fast and laid down under Jim's nose on the raft, and began to gap,
and stretch my fists out against Jim, and says:

"Hello, Jim, have I been asleep? Why didn't you stir me up?"

"Goodness gracious, is dat you, Huck? En you ain' dead--you ain'
drownded--you's back agin? It's too good for true, honey, it's too
good for true. Lemme look at you chile, lemme feel o' you. No, you ain'
dead! you's back agin, 'live en soun', jis de same ole Huck--de same ole
Huck, thanks to goodness!"

"What's the matter with you, Jim? You been a-drinking?"

"Drinkin'? Has I ben a-drinkin'? Has I had a chance to be a-drinkin'?"

"Well, then, what makes you talk so wild?"

"How does I talk wild?"

"HOW? Why, hain't you been talking about my coming back, and all that
stuff, as if I'd been gone away?"

"Huck--Huck Finn, you look me in de eye; look me in de eye. HAIN'T you
ben gone away?"

"Gone away? Why, what in the nation do you mean? I hain't been gone
anywheres. Where would I go to?"

"Well, looky here, boss, dey's sumf'n wrong, dey is. Is I ME, or who IS
I? Is I heah, or whah IS I? Now dat's what I wants to know."

"Well, I think you're here, plain enough, but I think you're a
tangle-headed old fool, Jim."

"I is, is I? Well, you answer me dis: Didn't you tote out de line in de
canoe fer to make fas' to de tow-head?"

"No, I didn't. What tow-head? I hain't see no tow-head."

"You hain't seen no towhead? Looky here, didn't de line pull loose en de
raf' go a-hummin' down de river, en leave you en de canoe behine in de
fog?"

"What fog?"

"Why, de fog!--de fog dat's been aroun' all night. En didn't you whoop,
en didn't I whoop, tell we got mix' up in de islands en one un us got
los' en t'other one was jis' as good as los', 'kase he didn' know whah he
wuz? En didn't I bust up agin a lot er dem islands en have a turrible
time en mos' git drownded? Now ain' dat so, boss--ain't it so? You
answer me dat."

"Well, this is too many for me, Jim. I hain't seen no fog, nor no
islands, nor no troubles, nor nothing. I been setting here talking with
you all night till you went to sleep about ten minutes ago, and I reckon
I done the same. You couldn't a got drunk in that time, so of course
you've been dreaming."

"Dad fetch it, how is I gwyne to dream all dat in ten minutes?"

"Well, hang it all, you did dream it, because there didn't any of it
happen."

"But, Huck, it's all jis' as plain to me as--"

"It don't make no difference how plain it is; there ain't nothing in it.
I know, because I've been here all the time."

Jim didn't say nothing for about five minutes, but set there studying
over it. Then he says:

"Well, den, I reck'n I did dream it, Huck; but dog my cats ef it ain't de
powerfullest dream I ever see. En I hain't ever had no dream b'fo' dat's
tired me like dis one."

"Oh, well, that's all right, because a dream does tire a body like
everything sometimes. But this one was a staving dream; tell me all
about it, Jim."

So Jim went to work and told me the whole thing right through, just as it
happened, only he painted it up considerable. Then he said he must start
in and "'terpret" it, because it was sent for a warning. He said the
first towhead stood for a man that would try to do us some good, but the
current was another man that would get us away from him. The whoops was
warnings that would come to us every now and then, and if we didn't try
hard to make out to understand them they'd just take us into bad luck,
'stead of keeping us out of it. The lot of towheads was troubles we was
going to get into with quarrelsome people and all kinds of mean folks,
but if we minded our business and didn't talk back and aggravate them, we
would pull through and get out of the fog and into the big clear river,
which was the free States, and wouldn't have no more trouble.

It had clouded up pretty dark just after I got on to the raft, but it was
clearing up again now.

"Oh, well, that's all interpreted well enough as far as it goes, Jim," I
says; "but what does THESE things stand for?"

It was the leaves and rubbish on the raft and the smashed oar. You could
see them first-rate now.

Jim looked at the trash, and then looked at me, and back at the trash
again. He had got the dream fixed so strong in his head that he couldn't
seem to shake it loose and get the facts back into its place again right
away. But when he did get the thing straightened around he looked at me
steady without ever smiling, and says:

"What do dey stan' for? I'se gwyne to tell you. When I got all wore out
wid work, en wid de callin' for you, en went to sleep, my heart wuz mos'
broke bekase you wuz los', en I didn' k'yer no' mo' what become er me en
de raf'. En when I wake up en fine you back agin, all safe en soun', de
tears come, en I could a got down on my knees en kiss yo' foot, I's so
thankful. En all you wuz thinkin' 'bout wuz how you could make a fool uv
ole Jim wid a lie. Dat truck dah is TRASH; en trash is what people is
dat puts dirt on de head er dey fren's en makes 'em ashamed."

Then he got up slow and walked to the wigwam, and went in there without
saying anything but that. But that was enough. It made me feel so mean
I could almost kissed HIS foot to get him to take it back.

It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble
myself to a nigger; but I done it, and I warn't ever sorry for it
afterwards, neither. I didn't do him no more mean tricks, and I wouldn't
done that one if I'd a knowed it would make him feel that way.